owned by lawrence and then presented to elusive recipients
First edition, first impression, Lawrence’s own copy, inscribed and initialled by him on the front free endpaper under his assumed name of T. E. Shaw: “GMD; K. I kept this, & read it, without too many bad moments, before sending it to you, as I promised. Graves poems are, however, really good. T.E.S”. Lawrence adopted the name T. E. Shaw when he joined the Tank Corps in March 1923, keeping the name when he transferred to the RAF in 1925. Graves’s memoir is an early study of Lawrence. “By the terms of his contract Graves had only six weeks to collect his material and Lawrence, understanding this, supplied him with great amounts of biographical information concerning the [Arab] Revolt and other aspects of his life in long letters in June and July. Furthermore, in order that the book . . . contain as few distortions as possible, Lawrence went over the drafts of the text in detail, making numerous changes and additions” (Mack, p. 367). The recipient, or recipients, of this copy have evaded identification. Provenance: T. E. Lawrence; then to “GMD; K.”; E.H. Mills (leather book label); Doris Louise Benz (morocco book label, her sale, Christie’s, 16 November 1984, lot 264); purchased by William S. Reese in that sale, with his book label to chemise. Exhibited at “Robert Graves: A Centennial Exhibition . . . from the Collection of William S. Reese,” the Grolier Club of New York, Spring 1995, no. 25. Octavo. Original orange cloth, spine lettered in gilt, publisher’s device blocked in blind on rear cover. Housed in a custom chemise and blue half morocco slipcase. Half-tone portrait frontispiece of Lawrence, 23 plates with illustrations, edited by Eric Kennington, 3 maps by Herry Perry; with the order blank for Doughty’s Arabia Deserta tipped in between pp. 448–9. Old dealer description and auction slip laid in. Spine slightly cocked, general signs of handling to lightly shaken binding. A very good copy. ¶ Higginson & Williams A26; O’Brien E030. £20,000 [157203] 45 LAWRENCE, T. E. – GRAVES, Robert. Lawrence and the Arabs. London: Jonathan Cape, 1927 “old doughty was a genius” – with an autograph letter signed by lawrence First edition, third impression, with an excellent two-page autograph letter signed from Lawrence (under his pseudonym of T. E. Shaw) to his former boss at the Geographic Section of the General Staff at Whitehall, Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley; an appealingly lively and informal letter in which Lawrence discusses, among other things, the great Arabian explorer Charles Doughty, who had died the previous week. Hedley (1865–1937) was commissioned into the Royal Engineers in 1884 and was attached to the Ordnance Survey. He served in the Second Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902), where he was several times mentioned in despatches, and his surveying skills and ability to provide maps locally proved vital at a time when there was a chronic shortage of up-to-the-minute cartography. Between 1906 and 1908 he was an advisor with the Survey of India and in 1911 appointed General Staff Officer, Grade 1 (GSO1) at the War Office, working in military intelligence. Before the First World War his prescient direction of his department saw that maps of France and Flanders were produced and stockpiled and that survey work be carried out in strategically important locations such as Palestine and the Balkans. Learning from his experience in South Africa he ensured that a
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mobile map printing section be set up for use in the field. Graves recounts that at the outbreak of the war, D. G. Hogarth “heard that Lawrence was at a loose end and got him given a week’s trial, as a favour, by Colonel Hedley . . . Three weeks later Hogarth met Hedley and asked him, ‘Did you find young Lawrence any use?’ ‘He’s running my entire department for me now,’ said Hedley shortly. Lawrence’s task here was making maps of Sinai, Belgium and France” (p. 81). The full text of the letter is available on request. In his letter, Lawrence refers to Carrol Romer (1883–1951), editor (1925–30) of the monthly literary periodical The Nineteenth Century and After (his letter to Romer concerning this matter is at the Bodleian Archives). During the war Romer had also worked in maps, serving as first adjutant with the Overseas Branch of the Ordnance Survey (OBOS) based on the Western Front. Provenance: ownership signature at head of front free endpaper of Hedley’s wife, Anna S. Hedley (1868–1946); below this the visiting card of Lieutenant Commander G. E. L. Atwood RN, annotated apparently in Anna Hedley’s hand, “with best wishes for 1928, see page 81” (where Colonel Hedley is mentioned). Octavo. Original brown cloth, spine lettered in gilt, publisher’s device blind- stamped on back cover. Half-tone portrait frontispiece of Lawrence, 23 plates with illustrations, edited by Eric Kennington, 3 maps by Herry Perry. Spine cocked and ends chipped, previous consolidation of joints, back cover variably faded. A good copy with the blank order form for Doughty’s Arabia Deserta tipped in between pp. 448–9. ¶ Higginson & Williams A26; O’Brien E030. John E. Mack, The Prince of our Disorder: The Life of T. E. Lawrence , 1998; R. T. Porter, “Romer and his Romer”, Sheetlines: The Journal of the Charles Close Society for the Study of Ordnance Survey Maps , no. 63, 2002. £3,750 [157646]
All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk
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