E. V. Lucas

Edward Verrall Lucas (June 11/12 1868 – June 26 1938) was a versatile and popular English writer of nearly 100 books. His style has great facility, and is generally found insipid by contemporary readers; some of his cricket writing has lasted. He is now remembered for his essays and books about London and travel, appearing in many editions, and his biography of Charles Lamb. He was a close friend of Edwin Lutyens.

He was born in Eltham, Kent into a Quaker family, and educated at Friends Public School in Saffron Walden. He worked first in a Brighton bookshop and then on a Sussex newspaper followed by "The Globe"; rising without university education to the "Punch magazine" 'table' in 1904. He became a prolific writer, providing extensive content for Punch and a column "A wanderer's notebook" for the Sunday Times.

He was responsible for A. A. Milne teaming up with E. H. Shepard for the Winnie-the-Pooh books. He wrote under pen names EVL, VVV, E. D. Ward, and FF for film criticism. Some of his early work was in collaboration with Charles Larcom Graves (1856 – 1944), another Punch writer.

Rupert Hart-Davis collected and published a collection of his essays on cricket, "Cricket All His Life", which John Arlott called "the best written of all books on cricket". ["Arlott on Cricket", edited by David Rayvern Allen, Fontana/Collins, 1985, p188.]

From 1924 he was chairman of the London publishers Methuen and Co.. According to R. G. G. Price's "A History of Punch", his polished and gentlemanly essayist's persona concealed:

:"a cynical clubman … very bitter about men and politics … [with] the finest pornographic library in London".

Quotes

* "One of the most adventurous things left us is to go to bed. For no one can lay a hand on our dreams." - 365 Days and One More Fact|date=August 2007
* "What is literature compared with cooking? The one is shadow, the other is substance." - 365 Days and One More Fact|date=August 2007
* "I have noticed that the people who are late are often so much jollier than the people who have to wait for them." Fact|date=October 2007

Media

* In the early 90's Children's television programme, 'The Sooty Show', The poem that begins with the lines "O England, country of my heart's desire" is wrongly attributed to an E.Y. Lucas, probably due to the 'V' in Lucas' name being mistaken for a 'Y' during the scriptwriting process.

Works

*Bernard Barton and his friends: a record of quiet lives (1893) Quaker biography
*A Book of Verse for Children (1897)
*The War of the Wenuses (1898) with C. L. Graves, parody of H. G. Wells
*Charles Lamb and the Lloyds (1898)
*Willow and Leather (1898) cricket essays
*The Open Road (1899) anthology
*The Book of Shops (1899)
*Four And Twenty Toilers (1900) poems
*What Shall We Do Now? (1900) with Elizabeth Lucas, games book
*Wisdom While You Wait (1903) with C. L. Graves, parody encyclopedia
*Works and Letters of Charles and Mary Lamb (1903-5) editor
*Highways and Byways in Sussex (1904)
*The Life of Charles Lamb (1905) biography
*The Friendly Town (1905)
*A Wanderer in Holland (1905)
*A Wanderer in London (1906)
*Listener's Lure (1906)
*Character and Comedy (1907)
*A Swan and her Friends (1907 about Anna Seward
*The Hambledon Men (1907) cricket
*The Gentlest Art (1907) anthology of letters
*Another Book of Verses for Children (1907)
*Anne's Terrible Good Nature (1908)
*Over Bemerton's (1908) novel
*Hustled History, Or, As It Might Have Been (1908) with C. L. Graves
*The Slowcoach (1908) fiction
*Mr. Coggs and other songs for children (1908) with Liza Lehmann
*A Wanderer in Paris (1909)
*One Day and Another (1909)
*Good Company - A Rally of Men (1909)
*Sir Pulteney (1910) as E. D. Ward, fantasy
*Mr Ingleside (1910) novel
*The Second Post (1910) anthology of letters
*Old Lamps for New (1911)
*What a Life! (1911) with George Morrow
*William Cowper's Letters (1911) editor
*A Wanderer in Florence (1912)
*London Lavender (1912)
*A Little of Everything (1912)
*Loiterer's Harvest (1913) essays
*Swollen Headed William (1914) parody
*A Wanderer in Venice (1914)
*Landmarks (1914)
*A Picked Company: being a selection of writings (1915) editor
*Her Infinite Variety: A Feminine Portrait Gallery (1915) anthology
*The Hausfrau Rampant (1916) novel
*Cloud and Silver (1916)
*The Vermilion Box (1916) novel
*London Revisited (1916)
*A Boswell of Baghdad (1917) essays
*Twixt Eagle & Dove (1918)
*The Phantom Journal (1919)
*Quoth the Raven (1919)
*Verena in the Midst (1920)
*Roving East and Roving West (1921)
*Edwin Austin Abbey, Royal Academician, The Record of His Life and Work (1921) biography
*Rose and Rose (1922)
*Vermeer of Delft (1922)
*Giving and Receiving (1922)
*Ginevra's Money (1922)
*Advisory Ben (1923)
*Luck of the Year (1923)
*Michael Angelo (1924)
*Rembrandt (1924)
*A Wanderer among Pictures (1924)
*Encounters and Diversions (1924)
*The Same Star (1924) play
*Zigzags in France (1925)
*John Constable the Painter (1925)
*Introducing London (1925)
*Playtime & Company (1925)
*A Wanderer in Rome (1926)
*Events and Embroideries (1926)
*365 Days and One More (1926)
*Frans Hals (1926)
*Twelve Songs From "Playtime & Company" (1926)
*The Joy of Life (1927) anthology of popular poetry
*A Fronded Isle (1927)
*The More I See of Men (1927)
*The Flamp and Other Stories (1927)
*A Rover I Would Be (1928)
*Out of a Clear Sky (1928)
*Mr Punch's Country Songs (1928)
*The Colvins and their Friends (1928) biography
*Windfall's Eye (1929)
*Turning Things Over (1929) essays
*If Dogs Could Write (1929) anthology
*Down the Sky (1930)
*Traveller’s Luck (1930) essays
*And Such Small Deer (1931)
*French Leaves (1931)
*Visibility Good (1931)
*Lemon Verbena (1932) essays
*Reading, Writing, and Remembering (1932) (autobiography)
*English Leaves (1933)
*Saunterer's Rewards (1933)
*Postbag Diversions (1933)
*At the Shrine of St. Charles (1934) for Charles Lamb anniversary
*Pleasure Trove (1935)
*The Old Contemporaries (1935)
*Only the Other Day (1936)
*London Afresh (1937)
*All of a Piece (1937)
*As the Bee Sucks (1937)
*Adventures and Misgivings (1938)
*A Hundred Years of Trent Bridge (1938) editor
*Cricket All His Life (1950) edited by Rupert Hart-Davis, cricket writing

References

*"E. V. Lucas: A Portrait" (1939) Audrey Lucas
*"E. V. Lucas and His Books" (1988) Claude A. Prance

External links

* [http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3Ae.%20v.%20lucas%20-contributor%3Agutenberg%20AND%20mediatype%3Atexts Works by E. V. Lucas] at Internet Archive (scanned books original editions color illustrated)
*gutenberg author|id=Edward_Verrall_Lucas|name=E. V. Lucas (plain text and HTML)
* [http://www.npg.org.uk/live/search/person.asp?search=ss&sText=lucas&LinkID=mp02815 Collection of portraits of Lucas at the National Portrait Gallery, London]