Edward Frederic Benson (1867-1940) was a prolific writer, the son of E.W. Benson, who was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1883 to 1896, and the brother of A.C. Benson, Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge, and himself a notable scholar. He attracted a new, enthusiastic audience when his 'Mapp & Lucia' novels, written in the 1930s, with their comic representations of English midlle-class mores of that period, were adapted for television in the 1980s.

Was also the younger brother of Robert Hugh Benson