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Introduction to London
A history of, and a ramble around, the city of London, looking at buildings, museums and other places of historic interest..
Paperback
First published August 6, 1925
5 people want to read
About the author
Edward Verrall Lucas
357 books15 followersNote: This is the Goodreads listing for E.V. Lucas.
He 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 essays 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 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.
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.
He 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 essays 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 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
November 25, 2023
What an absolutely delightful book, written in a friendly, chatty, extremely lucid style.
Over the years I have had many books by E V Lucas but have never read any, just sold them on in my professional life, so this was a first. And what an enjoyable experience it was; he is certainly a fine writer, even though I suspect that he is read far less these days than he was in my bookselling heyday. But on the evidence of this book, he should be brought back into fashion!
He portrays London with its rich history and augments it with rambles around the metropolis, picking out the salient buildings and entering the more important galleries and churches, highlighting some of the treasures therein and bringing to life the personalities involved in each venue.
No stone is left unturned, beginning with Llyn-din, the Celtic name meaning lake fort, that London had before the Roman invasion(s). Invasions by Julius Caesar, driven back to France by the British prince Cassivellaunus on his second visit, and then in the reign of the Emperor Claudius in AD43, Aulus Plautius arrived and oversaw the city's name latinised into Londinium - London being a relatively easy transition from that name.
From there our great metropolis developed and Mr Lucas takes us through its history in a series of geographic rambles. Victoria to Trafalgar Square is the beginning (where I spent much of my youth), then a trip to the National Gallery, up The Strand to Fleet Street and then back to Westminster Abbey, all the while highlighting the personalities who made the particular areas famous or who contributed to the collections gathered therein.
The Embankment, the City, the Tower of London, the docks, Piccadilly Circus and its environs, the Tate Gallery all get the charming Lucas treatment and he even finds time to suggest that the reader loaf around in particular areas; nice to see that somewhat old fashioned word used as a verb to mean being idle and to spend time - which he insists one does at certain locations.
All in all it is an eminently readable book, which is difficult to put down once begun and if one has some knowledge of particular areas it most certainly brings them vividly to life and allows old memories to be relived.
24 November 2023
EV Lucas is such a charming commentator on all the subjects on which he writes as he employs a light and entertaining style with a crisp and meaningful turn of phrase. One that particularly amused me in this volume was when wandering around the various galleries he mentions an artist and suggests that 'only a dolt' could not be captivated by his work! He is knowledgeable about art and his views are well worth considering but perhaps this one is just a little too far as everyone is entitled to their own opinion ... but it is funny!
His view on collecting art is very similar to mine as when discussing the Wallace Collection, which is 'mainly the choice of one man, the fourth Marquis of Hertford (1800-70) he points out that that gentleman's maxim was that he would acquire "only pleasing pictures". As an adjunct to that statement he adds, However fine a painting might be technically, if he did not like it - or in the old phrase, if it did not like him - he would not buy it'. I thoroughly concur with that view and my own modest collection, not being anything to compare to the great collections, bears out that viewpoint!
As I said in my original review, the book is a delightful read an is difficult to put down once begun and whenever I read one of his works, I wonder why I have not read many more.
Over the years I have had many books by E V Lucas but have never read any, just sold them on in my professional life, so this was a first. And what an enjoyable experience it was; he is certainly a fine writer, even though I suspect that he is read far less these days than he was in my bookselling heyday. But on the evidence of this book, he should be brought back into fashion!
He portrays London with its rich history and augments it with rambles around the metropolis, picking out the salient buildings and entering the more important galleries and churches, highlighting some of the treasures therein and bringing to life the personalities involved in each venue.
No stone is left unturned, beginning with Llyn-din, the Celtic name meaning lake fort, that London had before the Roman invasion(s). Invasions by Julius Caesar, driven back to France by the British prince Cassivellaunus on his second visit, and then in the reign of the Emperor Claudius in AD43, Aulus Plautius arrived and oversaw the city's name latinised into Londinium - London being a relatively easy transition from that name.
From there our great metropolis developed and Mr Lucas takes us through its history in a series of geographic rambles. Victoria to Trafalgar Square is the beginning (where I spent much of my youth), then a trip to the National Gallery, up The Strand to Fleet Street and then back to Westminster Abbey, all the while highlighting the personalities who made the particular areas famous or who contributed to the collections gathered therein.
The Embankment, the City, the Tower of London, the docks, Piccadilly Circus and its environs, the Tate Gallery all get the charming Lucas treatment and he even finds time to suggest that the reader loaf around in particular areas; nice to see that somewhat old fashioned word used as a verb to mean being idle and to spend time - which he insists one does at certain locations.
All in all it is an eminently readable book, which is difficult to put down once begun and if one has some knowledge of particular areas it most certainly brings them vividly to life and allows old memories to be relived.
24 November 2023
EV Lucas is such a charming commentator on all the subjects on which he writes as he employs a light and entertaining style with a crisp and meaningful turn of phrase. One that particularly amused me in this volume was when wandering around the various galleries he mentions an artist and suggests that 'only a dolt' could not be captivated by his work! He is knowledgeable about art and his views are well worth considering but perhaps this one is just a little too far as everyone is entitled to their own opinion ... but it is funny!
His view on collecting art is very similar to mine as when discussing the Wallace Collection, which is 'mainly the choice of one man, the fourth Marquis of Hertford (1800-70) he points out that that gentleman's maxim was that he would acquire "only pleasing pictures". As an adjunct to that statement he adds, However fine a painting might be technically, if he did not like it - or in the old phrase, if it did not like him - he would not buy it'. I thoroughly concur with that view and my own modest collection, not being anything to compare to the great collections, bears out that viewpoint!
As I said in my original review, the book is a delightful read an is difficult to put down once begun and whenever I read one of his works, I wonder why I have not read many more.
Displaying 1 of 1 review