E. V. Lucas
Encyclopedia
Edward Verrall Lucas was a versatile and popular English writer. His nearly 100 books demonstrate great facility with style, and are generally acknowledged as humorous by contemporary readers and critics. Some of his essays about the sport cricket
are still considered among the best instructional material. He is remembered best for his essay
s and books about London and travel abroad; these books continue through many editions. He is particularly noted for his biography of Charles Lamb. He was a close friend of Edwin Lutyens
.
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 name
s 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.
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:
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
are still considered among the best instructional material. He is remembered best for his essay
Essay
An essay is a piece of writing which is often written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. The definition...
s and books about London and travel abroad; these books continue through many editions. He is particularly noted for his biography of Charles Lamb. He was a close friend of Edwin Lutyens
Edwin Lutyens
Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens, OM, KCIE, PRA, FRIBA was a British architect who is known for imaginatively adapting traditional architectural styles to the requirements of his era...
.
Life
He was born in Eltham, Kent into a Quaker family, and educated at Friends SchoolFriends School Saffron Walden
Friends' School is an Quaker independent school located in Saffron Walden, Essex, situated approximately 12 miles south of the city of Cambridge...
in Saffron Walden
Saffron Walden
Saffron Walden is a medium-sized market town in the Uttlesford district of Essex, England. It is located north of Bishop's Stortford, south of Cambridge and approx north of London...
. He worked first in a Brighton
Brighton
Brighton is the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, England on the south coast of Great Britain...
bookshop and then on a Sussex
Sussex
Sussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is an historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...
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
The Sunday Times (UK)
The Sunday Times is a Sunday broadsheet newspaper, distributed in the United Kingdom. The Sunday Times is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News International, which is in turn owned by News Corporation. Times Newspapers also owns The Times, but the two papers were founded...
.
He was responsible for A. A. Milne
A. A. Milne
Alan Alexander Milne was an English author, best known for his books about the teddy bear Winnie-the-Pooh and for various children's poems. Milne was a noted writer, primarily as a playwright, before the huge success of Pooh overshadowed all his previous work.-Biography:A. A...
teaming up with E. H. Shepard
E. H. Shepard
Ernest Howard Shepard was an English artist and book illustrator. He was known especially for his human-like animals in illustrations for The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame and Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne....
for the Winnie-the-Pooh
Winnie-the-Pooh
Winnie-the-Pooh, also called Pooh Bear, is a fictional anthropomorphic bear created by A. A. Milne. The first collection of stories about the character was the book Winnie-the-Pooh , and this was followed by The House at Pooh Corner...
books. He wrote under pen name
Pen name
A pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author. A pen name may be used to make the author's name more distinctive, to disguise his or her gender, to distance an author from some or all of his or her works, to protect the author from retribution for his or her...
s 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
Rupert Hart-Davis
Sir Rupert Charles Hart-Davis was an English publisher, editor and man of letters. He founded the publishing company Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd...
collected and published a collection of his essays on cricket, Cricket All His Life, which John Arlott
John Arlott
Leslie Thomas John Arlott OBE was an English journalist, author and cricket commentator for the BBC's Test Match Special. He was also a poet, wine connoisseur and former police officer in Hampshire...
called "the best written of all books on cricket.
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.
Media
- In the early 90s1990sFile:1990s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: The Hubble Space Telescope floats in space after it was taken up in 1990; American F-16s and F-15s fly over burning oil fields and the USA Lexie in Operation Desert Storm, also known as the 1991 Gulf War; The signing of the Oslo Accords on...
' children's television programmeChildren's television seriesChildren's television series, are commercial television programs designed for, and marketed to children, normally scheduled for broadcast during the morning and afternoon when children are awake. They can sometimes run in the early evening, for the children that go to school...
, 'The Sooty ShowThe Sooty ShowThe Sooty Show is a British children's television series that aired on the BBC from 1955 to 1967 when the BBC eventually cancelled The Sooty Show after Paul Fox, the controller of BBC1 at the time, cleared out some of the long running shows. After it was cancelled from the BBC that year, The Sooty...
', 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 BartonBernard Barton-External links:* at Find-A-Grave...
and his friends: a record of quiet lives (1893), a biography of the Quaker poet - A Book of Verse for Children (1897)
- The War of the Wenuses (1898) with C. L. Graves, a parody of H. G. WellsH. G. WellsHerbert George Wells was an English author, now best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary, even writing text books and rules for war games...
's The War of the WorldsThe War of the WorldsThe War of the Worlds is an 1898 science fiction novel written by H. G. Wells.The War of the Worlds may also refer to:- Radio broadcasts :* The War of the Worlds , the 1938 radio broadcast by Orson Welles... - Charles LambCharles LambCharles Lamb was an English essayist, best known for his Essays of Elia and for the children's book Tales from Shakespeare, which he produced with his sister, Mary Lamb . Lamb has been referred to by E.V...
and the LloydsCharles Lloyd (poet)Charles Lloyd II , poet, was a friend of Charles Lamb, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Thomas de Quincey. His best-known poem is "Desultory Thoughts in London".-Early life:...
(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 SewardAnna SewardAnna Seward was an English Romantic poet, often called the Swan of Lichfield.-Life:Seward was the elder daughter of Thomas Seward , prebendary of Lichfield and Salisbury, and author...
- The HambledonHambledon ClubThe Hambledon Club was a social club that is famous for its organisation of 18th century cricket matches. By the late 1770s it was the foremost cricket club in England.-Foundation:...
Men (1907), cricket history - 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 (BemertonBemertonBemerton, once a separate village to the west of Salisbury, Wiltshire, England, is now virtually a suburb of that city. George Herbert was Rector of Fugglestone with Bemerton and is buried at Bemerton....
is a village with several notable inhabitants) - 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 LehmannLiza LehmannLiza Lehmann was an English operatic soprano and composer, known for her vocal compositions.-Biography:She was born Elisabetha Nina Mary Frederica Lehmann in London. Her father was the German painter Rudolf Lehmann and her mother was Amelia Chambers, a music teacher, composer and arranger...
- 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!What a Life! (novel)What A Life! is a work of satirical fiction by Edward Verrall Lucas and George Morrow published in 1911. The book is best known for its inventive narrative technique: the story takes the reader through the life of an upper-class British gentleman, with the plot being dictated by the book's...
(1911) with George MorrowGeorge Morrow (illustrator)George Morrow was a cartoonist and book illustrator. He was the son of a painter and decorator from Clifton Street in west Belfast... - William CowperWilliam CowperWilliam Cowper was an English poet and hymnodist. One of the most popular poets of his time, Cowper changed the direction of 18th century nature poetry by writing of everyday life and scenes of the English countryside. In many ways, he was one of the forerunners of Romantic poetry...
'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 AbbeyEdwin Austin AbbeyEdwin Austin Abbey was an American artist, illustrator, and painter. He flourished at the beginning of what is now referred to as the "golden age" of illustration, and is best known for his drawings and paintings of Shakespearean and Victorian subjects, as well as for his painting of Edward VII's...
, Royal Academician, The Record of His Life and Work (1921), biography - Rose and Rose (1922)
- Vermeer of DelftDelftDelft is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland , the Netherlands. It is located between Rotterdam and The Hague....
(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 ConstableJohn ConstableJohn Constable was an English Romantic painter. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for his landscape paintings of Dedham Vale, the area surrounding his home—now known as "Constable Country"—which he invested with an intensity of affection...
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 HalsFrans HalsFrans Hals was a Dutch Golden Age painter. He is notable for his loose painterly brushwork, and helped introduce this lively style of painting into Dutch art. Hals was also instrumental in the evolution of 17th century group portraiture.-Biography:Hals was born in 1580 or 1581, in Antwerp...
(1926), biography - 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 County Songs (1928)
- The ColvinsSidney ColvinSidney Colvin was an English curator and literary and art critic, part of the illustrious Anglo-Indian Colvin family. He is primarily remembered for his friendship with Robert Louis Stevenson.-Biography:...
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 BridgeTrent BridgeTrent Bridge is a Test, One-day international and County cricket ground located in West Bridgford, Nottinghamshire, England and is also the headquarters of Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club. As well as International cricket and Nottinghamshire's home games, the ground has hosted the Finals Day of...
(1938), editor - Cricket All His Life (1950), edited by Rupert Hart-DavisRupert Hart-DavisSir Rupert Charles Hart-Davis was an English publisher, editor and man of letters. He founded the publishing company Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd...
, cricket writing
External links
- Works by E. V. Lucas at Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
(scanned books original editions color illustrated) - Works by E. V. Lucas from the Baldwin Library of Historical Children's LiteratureUniversity of Florida Baldwin LibraryThe Baldwin Library of Historical Children's Literature in the Department of Special and Area Studies Collections at the University of Florida's George A. Smathers Libraries contains more than 103,000 volumes published in Great Britain and the United States from the early 18th century through the...
(scanned books original editions color illustrated) (plain text and HTML) - Collection of portraits of Lucas at the National Portrait Gallery, London