E. V. Lucas

Born to a Quaker family in Eltham, on the fringes of London, Lucas began work at the age of sixteen, apprenticed to a bookseller.

His father's financial incompetence prevented Lucas from going to a university, and at the age of sixteen he was apprenticed to a Brighton bookseller.

In 1897 he married (Florence) Elizabeth Gertrude, daughter of Colonel James Theodore Griffin, of the United States army; there was one child of the marriage, Audrey Lucas, who became an actor, playwright and novelist.

His biographer Katharine Chubbuck writes, "These works established him as a critic, and his Life of Charles Lamb (1905) is considered seminal.

[4] Lucas's Punch colleague E V Knox commented, "Lucas's publications include many anthologies and about thirty collections of light essays, on almost any subject that took his fancy, and some of the titles which he gave to them, Listener's Lure (1905), One Day and Another (1909), Old Lamps for New (1911), Loiterer's Harvest (1913), Cloud and Silver (1916), A Rover I Would Be (1928), indicate sufficiently the lightness, gaiety, and variety of their contents.

He versified a fancy, or concentrated in an anecdote or instance all that a vaguer mind might stagger for an hour to express.

He was a member of J. M. Barrie's team the "Allahakbarries", along with Henry Herbert La Thangue and Arthur Conan Doyle.

[8] His study of Highways and Byways in Sussex continues to influence postmodern explorations of the local;[9] while his 1932 memoirs Reading, Writing and Remembering retained their interest longer than most of his other essays.

[2] Lucas received honorary degrees from the Universities of St Andrews and Oxford, and was appointed Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour in 1932.

[11] In his later years Lucas cut his domestic ties and lived alone, spending his evenings in restaurants and clubs,[12] and developing a wide collection of pornography.