F. L. Lucas OBE | |
|---|---|
 Lucas in 1957 | |
| Born | Frank Laurence Lucas 28 December 1894 Hipperholme, Yorkshire, England |
| Died | 1 June 1967 (aged 72) Cambridge, England |
| Occupation | Academic, writer, critic |
| Alma mater | Trinity College, Cambridge |
| Genre | Essay, literary criticism, fiction, poetry, drama, polemic, travel writing |
| Notable works | The Complete Works of John Webster (1927) Style (1955) |
| Notable awards | Benson Medal (1939) OBE (1946) |
Frank Laurence Lucas OBE (28 December 1894 – 1 June 1967) was an English classical scholar, literary critic, poet, novelist, playwright, political polemicist, Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, and intelligence officer at Bletchley Park during World War II.
He is now best remembered for his scathing 1923 review of T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land,[1] and for his book Style (1955; revised 1962), an acclaimed guide to recognising and writing good prose.[2] His Tragedy in Relation to Aristotle's 'Poetics' (1927, substantially revised 1957) was for over fifty years a standard introduction.[3] His most important contribution to scholarship was his four-volume old-spelling Complete Works of John Webster (1927), the first collected edition of the Jacobean dramatist since that of Hazlitt the Younger (1857), itself an inferior copy of Dyce (1830).[4] Eliot called Lucas "the perfect annotator",[5][note 1] and subsequent Webster scholars have been indebted to him, notably the editors of the new Cambridge Webster (1995–2019).[6]
Lucas is also remembered for his anti-fascist campaign in the 1930s,[7][8][9] and for his wartime work at Bletchley Park, for which he was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE).[10]
- ^ Lucas, F. L., 'The Waste Land': New Statesman review, 3 November 1923; Vol. 22, No. 551, p.116,118. Scan of full review: [1]. Extracts: shubow.com [2]
- ^ Epstein, Joseph, 'Heavy Sentences', The New Criterion [3]; Walther, Matthew, 'The Art of Writing Well', New English Review [4] Archived 8 June 2017 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ 'Hogarth Press', University of Delaware Library Special Collections
- ^ Lucas, F. L., ed., The Complete Works of John Webster, London, 1927; vol.1, p.1
- ^ Eliot, T. S., 'John Marston' in Elizabethan Essays, London, 1934
- ^ Gunby, David; Carnegie, David; Hammond, Antony; DelVecchio, Doreen; Jackson, MacDonald P.: editors of The Works of John Webster (3 vols, Cambridge, 1995–2007)
- ^ 'F. L. Lucas: Writer with Love of Liberty', The Times (London, 2 June 1967)
- ^ Annan, Noel, Our Age: Portrait of a Generation (London, 1990)
- ^ 'F. L. Lucas is dead'; The New York Times, 26 June 1967
- ^ The London Gazette, 9. Jan. 1946: thegazette.co.uk
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