Bell on trilby with no rim seems ridiculous (5,6)
I believe the answer is:
emily bronte
'bell' is the definition.
(Ellis Bell was Emily Bronte's pen name)
'on trilby with no rim seems ridiculous' is the wordplay.
'with no rim' says to take the centre.
'ridiculous' indicates an anagram.
The middle letters of 'seems' are 'eem'.
'on'+'trilby'+'eem'='ontrilbyeem'
'ontrilbyeem' anagrammed gives 'EMILY BRONTE'.
(Other definitions for emily bronte that I've seen before include "Wuthering Heights author" , "Novelist, one of three sisters" .)