E. V. Lucas (Edward Verrall Lucas) Biography

British journalist, essayist, travel writer, and novelist, born in Eltham, Kent; he received an irregular education before starting work at a bookshop in Brighton where he began to read widely. After working as a journalist in Sussex and London, he joined the staff of Punch, of which he became assistant editor. The Open Road (1899) was followed by well over a hundred titles. His travel writings are principally represented by his A Wanderer In … series, which covered London (1904), Holland (1905), Paris (1909), Florence (1912), and other towns and countries in Britain and Europe. His light and urbanely fluent style, which he claimed to have developed by translating Maupassant, was adequate to essays on a remarkable range of subjects; collections of such pieces include Listener's Lure (1905), Old Lamps for New (1911), and A Rover I Would Be (1928). He also published introductory studies of painters, among which are Vermeer of Delft (1922) and John Constable the Painter (1924). Over Bemerton's (1908), the most notable of his numerous novels, draws on his experience of the book trade. He produced the standard edition of The Works of Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb (7 volumes, 1903–5) and wrote the authoritative Life of Charles Lamb (2 volumes, 1905). Reading, Writing, and Remembering (1932) is an autobiography.