Theophilus Lucas () is known for writing a successful book about gambling. He inherited, according to his own assertion, an estate of £2,000 a year, which he lost at the gaming tables. To deter his son, who was the "very next heir to £1,500 per annum by the death of an uncle", from following his example, or, at best, to put him on his guard against the tricks of card-sharpers, he wrote an entertaining, in places scandalous, book entitled ''Memoirs of the Lives, Intrigues, and Comical Adventures of the most famous Gamesters and celebrated Sharpers in the reigns of Charles II, James II, William III, and Queen Anne''; "wherein is contain'd the secret History of Gaming. The whole calculated for the meridians of London, Bath, Tunbridge, and the Groom-Porters" (1714). A third edition, with additions, was published without the author's name in 1744. This book, which owes nothing to

Charles Cotton Charles Cotton (28 April 1630 – 16 February 1687) was an English poet and writer, best known for translating the work of Michel de Montaigne from the French, for his contributions to ''The Compleat Angler'', and for the influential ''The Comp ...

's ''

The Compleat Gamester ''The Compleat Gamester'', first published in 1674, is one of the earliest known English-language games compendia. It was published anonymously, but later attributed to Charles Cotton (1630–1687). Further editions appeared in the period up to 1 ...

'' (1674), has been of great use to biographers, though its statements must obviously be received with caution. Whether Theophilus Lucas had a real existence or was merely the pseudonym of some bookseller's hack, it is apparently impossible to determine. Alexander Smith, in the following years, published several works in similar vein; his biographer

Thomas Seccombe Thomas Seccombe (1866–1923) was a miscellaneous English writer and, from 1891 to 1901, assistant editor of the ''Dictionary of National Biography'', in which he wrote over 700 entries. A son of physician and episcopus vagans John Thomas Se ...

wrote: "It is not improbable that his industry was stimulated by the success obtained by Theophilus Lucas from his ''Lives of the Gamesters''.

References

Attribution * {{DEFAULTSORT:Lucas, Theophilus People whose existence is disputed 18th-century English writers British gambling writers