The Nervous State: Collaboration, Performances and Impact

History drama. Europe stretched to breaking point by political crisis and fear. One couple’s psychological battle in the War of Nerves, 1938.

On 31 December 1937 F L (‘Peter’) Lucas, Bloomsbury writer, Cambridge classics fellow, resolved to keep a diary for one year, motivated by a growing sense of dread at the approach of war. He was researching a new play based on Icelandic saga in collaboration with his younger wife, classicist and artist, Prudence (‘Prudey’) Lucas (née Wilkinson).

Through 1938 Peter and Prudey travelled and researched the Laxdæla saga, until Prudey’s breakdown at the height of the Munich crisis. Soon after Journal Under The Terror 1938 was published Peter Lucas began divorce proceedings; Prudey is barely mentioned in the published book. Having turned to the study of psychology during his wife’s illness, Lucas becomes increasingly fascinated by the science of the mind and will spend WWII working for British Intelligence at Bletchley Park.