Robert Ames Bennet (1870–1954) was an active American novelist and screenwriter who made significant contributions to early twentieth-century popular genre fiction, particularly westerns and science fiction. Early in his career, Bennet wrote short stories, theatrical scripts, and novels across a wide variety of genres, often publishing under the pseudonym Lee Robinet. Over the course of his career, his focus shifted, and by the 1930s, he had established himself primarily as a prolific writer of western adventures, penning popular stories such as Caught in the Wild, Go-Getter Gary, and Guns on the Rio Grande. His narrative style and exciting plots also caught the attention of Hollywood, with several of his novels being adapted into films, including Finders Keepers and Out of the Depths. In the realm of speculative fiction, Bennet is highly regarded for his novel Thyra: A Romance of the Polar Pit. Considered a classic of the Lost World subgenre, this work was later recognized in the historical compilation 333: A Bibliography of the Science-Fantasy Novel as one of the outstanding science-fantasy efforts published prior to 1950.
