|
Americana
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Item Details
|
|
 |
 |
| Heading: |
|
| Author: |
[Lawrence, Thomas Edward] |
| Title: |
Seven Pillars of Wisdom. A triumph |
| Place: |
[London] |
| Publisher: |
[Privately printed for the author by Manning Pike and H.J. Hodgson] |
| Date: |
1926 |
| Item # : |
150454 |
|
|
| Sale Number |
|
295 |
| Lot Number |
|
321 |
| Sale Name |
|
|
| Rare Books & Manuscripts - Voyages - Natural History - Finely Bound Sets |
| Sale Date |
|
10/14/2004 |
| Price realized |
|
$ 16100 |
|
This item was sold in a live auction.
If another copy or a similar item comes
up for auction, we can let you know.
Pressing the button below will add
the title to your 'want list', and if
the item comes up for auction again,
we will notify you via email.
|
|
|
| Description: |
| Printed in red and black, initial letters by Edward Wadsworth; four folding color lithograph maps (two copies each of two maps, one bound at front). 27 plates bound in at back, many in color, one double-page. 57 illustrations printed in text, one double-page. Illustrations are after Eric Kennington, Blair Hughes-Stanton, Roberts, Lamb, G. Hermes, Paul Nash, J.C. Clark, John, Sargent, Slatter, Young, Gilbert Spencer, Rothenstein, and after photographs. Text collates correctly except without frontispiece (p.[III]). 9¾x7½, original half red morocco, gilt-ruled, spine gilt in six compartments, top edge gilt, pictorial endpapers after Eric Kennington. Second English Edition, First Published Edition (the Subscriber's or "Cranwell Edition"). One of 32 incomplete copies from a total edition of 211 (170 complete and 9 spoils). |
| Inscribed and initialled by Lawrence "Incomplete copy. / I.XII.26 TES" on p. XIX. One of 32 incomplete copies which were "presented to the men who had served with [Lawrence] in Arabia and who were not able to pay the high price asked for the complete issue" (German Reed, p.1, E043-E046, quoted in O'Brien).
The included plates are: Muddowra, 4 street scenes of Jeddah, Prickly Pear (not called for in list), Wilson, Author (pastel by Kennington), Lloyd, Jaafar, Auda abu Tayi, Ghalib, Mukhmeyer, Mahmas, Serg, Tafas, At Akaba, Hogarth, Storrs, Young, Junor, Wingate, A. Downay, Author (pencil drawing by John), El Sakhara, Stokes' gun class, Thinking Chap. C., In a tent, Entering Damascus, and Irish troops being bombed in the Judean hills. This copy is without the frontispiece and the plates bound within text (except 2 bound in at back) and about half the plates bound in at back.
The publication history of "Seven Pillars" is an adventure story in itself. "Lawrence began writing his version of the desert war in 1919 while attending the Paris Peace Conference. A major portion, if not all, was lost at Reading Station in late 1919. A second version was written in London 1919-20 in a period of three months. Lawrence burned this in 1922 in Chingford. The third manuscript was written in London, Jeddah, and Amman, 1921, and in London, 1922...between January and June 1922 Lawrence had eight copies of text three printed by the Oxford Times. Six copies still exist... Lawrence reworked the text from 1923-1926 while in the RAF and Tank Corps. The 1922 'Oxford' version was loaned to various people for critical comments as follows: G.B. Shaw, E.M. Forster, Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling, Siegfried Sassoon, Edward Garnett, D.G. Hogarth, Gertrude Bell, Gen. Wavell, Alan & G. Dawney, Robin Buxton, and W.H. Bartholomew. In 1926 he published the elaborate 'Cranwell' or 'Subscriber's' edition in an edition of 211 copies. A text of 170,000 words was considered by Lawrence to be 'the final corrected text'... With the exception of the American copyright edition no other printings of the Seven Pillars of Wisdom were permitted until after his death in 1935" (O'Brien pp.38-39). By 1926, Lawrence had already attained a phenomenal level of celebrity. His forbearance in publishing a trade edition can be ascribed to his scrupulous aversion to making money from the Arab Revolt. The present is a beautiful copy of one of the great rarities of 20th-century literature. Lawrence's Seven Pillars "ranks with the greatest books written in the English language" (Winston Churchill). O'Brien A040. |
| Condition: |
| Fine copy with just a touch of rubbing to spine ends and corners, to faint rub marks to front cover; and about 12 text leaves with a pale spot or slightest marginal toning. |
|
|
|
|
|
previous lot next lot
|
|
|
|
