My friend, the writer and publisher John Lucas, who has died aged 88, was the author of more than 50 books, not only in his own academic field with studies of writers as diverse as Charles Dickens, George Crabbe, John Clare and William Blake, but also poetry, novels and memoirs.
His poetry collection Studying Grosz on the Bus won the Aldeburgh festival poetry prize in 1989, and John also wrote works of social history such as Closing Time at the Royal Oak (2021), the wonderfully idiosyncratic A Brief History of Whistling, with Allan Chatburn (2015), and The Trent Bridge Battery, a history of the Nottinghamshire Gunn dynasty, cricketers and bat manufacturers (1985, with Basil Haynes).
His abiding legacy, however, is Shoestring Press, which he founded in 1994 and which aimed to publish “established but unfashionable” poets, in particular working-class and regional writers, and those whose work was little known in the UK.
In recent years the remit was expanded to include plays – including five of mine – memoirs and essays. The output was tremendous for a one-man operation – John published more than 400 titles characterised by exceptional presentation and the highest editorial standards – somewhat surprisingly, as he refused to computerise and writers received his notes in barely decipherable longhand.
Born in Exeter, he was the son of Leonard, an insurance inspector, and Phyllis (nee Kelly), an office worker. The family moved to Ashford, in Surrey, when John was 10, and he attended what was then Hampton grammar school.
He studied English and philosophy at Reading University, graduating in 1959. There he met Pauline van Meeteren and they were married in 1961. His first appointment was as a lecturer at Nottingham University in 1964. Three years later, John won a Fulbright scholarship to teach for a year at the University of Maryland. Living in Washington DC, John, Pauline and their two small children experienced demonstrations against the Vietnam war and the aftermath of two political assassinations, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy.
On returning to Nottingham the family settled in Beeston, in a home that provided a convivial welcome to his many friends, former students and fellow writers.
He became chair of English and drama at Loughborough University in 1976. There were further travels to Melbourne, Tasmania and Romania, through the British Council as visiting lecturer and poet. In 1984 came the invitation to be Lord Byron visiting professor at the University of Athens, inspiring 92 Acharnon Street – A Year in Athens, which won the Dolman best travel book award in 2008.
John was committed to education in the broadest sense, inside and outside the academy – he was a WEA tutor for many years. He ended his academic career as professor emeritus at Nottingham Trent University.
A love of jazz and poetry were combined through evenings in a Nottingham guitar bar (2012-16), where John invited poets to read from their latest books in intervals between jazz numbers.
At the time of his death, he had just completed his latest novel and was editing several forthcoming volumes for Shoestring Press. He is survived by Pauline, their two children, Emma and Ben, and three grandchildren, Amanda, Sam and Macayla.
