Elijah Baley

Elijah Baley is the detective from Earth in the first three books of Isaac Asimov's robot series. When he was a year old, his father was blamed for an accident at his workplace and was declassfied. Elijah's mother died soon afterwards, and his father died when he was eight, so Elijah and his two older sisters had to move into the orphanage. Elijah's Uncle Boris sometimes visited him and gave him sweets made from yeast, illegally smuggled out of the yeast processing plant where he worked.

Elijah met his wife Jessie (short for Jezebel) at a party, and was first attracted to her because of the coincidence of their names. They had one son, Bentley, who later became a government official on Baleyworld, one of the first Settler worlds. Elijah also emigrated to Baleyworld later in his life after resigning from his job as a policeman.

Elijah Baley is the hero of the following books and short story:

• The Caves of Steel, set on Earth, in which Elijah must solve the murder of Spacer scientist Dr Sarton or risk being replaced by a robot.
• The Naked Sun, in which Elijah is sent to Solaria to solve the murder of Dr Delmarre.
• Mirror Image, a short story in which Elijah determines which of two mathematicians is guilty of fraud.
• The Robots of Dawn, in which Elijah is summoned to Aurora in hopes that he can prove Dr Fastolfe not guilty of destroying his humaniform robot Jander.

The final robot novel, Robots and Empire, is set after Elijah's death but contains some scenes in which other characters remember him.