Cummings, Bruce Frederick (1889–1919)

English writer and biologist. Under the pseudonym W N P Barbellion he wrote his Journal of a Disappointed Man (1919; published shortly before his death), using extracts from his diary to describe his early passion for natural history and the torture of his later illness (sclerosis). It is one of the great psychological revelations in English autobiography.

Born and educated in Devon, Cummings began as a reporter, then worked as a biologist in Plymouth and in the entomological department at the Natural History Museum, London.

Posthumous works are Enjoying Life and other Literary Remains (1919) and A Last Diary (1920).