Michael Lucas was born in Surrey, read history at the University of Sussex and worked for the NHS for 38 years, mostly in Kent. His long-standing interest in the Great War was given an extra dimension when he discovered, around 2003, that a great-uncle had served three years on the Western Front as a private soldier with 9th Battalion / East Surrey Regiment.
He subsequently wrote a history of that unit from 1914 to 1920, The Journey's End Battalion, and edited the letters of the battalion medical officer Captain George Pirie as his second volume, Frontline Medic. Continuing the theme, his third book The Real 'General Mitford' is a biography of the battalion's brigade commander.
Michael is a member of the Western Front Association and a prolific contributor to its journal Stand To! He has also published articles in various other outlets and given talks based on his research at (among others) the Surrey History Centre and the National Archives in Kew.