" GHOSTED " BIOGRAPHIES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 234, 3 October 1931, Page 9

" GHOSTED " BIOGRAPHIES.

AUTHOR'S NEWEST CHANCE

LONDON, September 26. Netley Lucas, the former Borstal boy, who became a Royal biographer, will be' able to write "The Autobiography of a Crook" after he has served the 18 months to which he was sentenced for obtaining £225 from a literary agent by false pretences.

Lucas, Avho, under the- pen-name of Evelyn Graham,- specialised in "ghosted" biographies—many without authority— of Royalties and prominent persons, including the King, the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Connaught, and Lord Lonsdale, wrote to a literary agent as "Lady Angela Stanley, lady-in-waiting to Queen Alexandria," offering a biography of the late Queen Mother. Accompanying his letter was what purported to be a letter from Lord Stanifordhain praising the biography.

Lucas' parents died in. his youth, and at the age of 14, for pilfering at school, he was sent to an industrial school*. Twice charged with i forgery, he absconded from bail and later" masqueraded as a naval officer, swindling girls.

Sent again to a Borstal institution, lie engaged in extensive forgeries after his release, and was sentenced to 10 months' imprisonment. After that he went to Canada, where he was once more imprisoned, and then deported.

On returning to England he began writing.

Lucas pleaded that he had done nothing that was not habitual in Fleet Street and a common practice in the literary world. He heard the sentence smilingly. _ . , .