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65 LAWRENCE, T. E. Seven Pillars of Wisdom. [London: privately printed by Manning Pike and C. J. Hodgson,] 1926 the famous cranwell edition – initialled by lawrence One of the Cranwell or “Subscriber’s” edition of 211 copies, one of 170 copies designated complete, inscribed by Lawrence on p. XIX “Complete copy. 1.XII.26 TES”, with one manuscript correction by Lawrence to the illustration list (a “K” identifying Kennington rather than Roberts as the artist responsible for “The gad-fly”). This imposing copy of Lawrence’s sumptuously produced account of his role in the Arab Revolt, his “big book”, is here in an attractively demure binding by Bumpus of Oxford Street, who, O’Brien notes, bound 20 copies of Seven Pillars . The proprietor of Bumpus was John G. Wilson, described by Basil Blackwell in ODNB as “the most famous English bookseller of his time”. Wilson was instrumental in managing subscriptions for the book, corresponding with Lawrence as they came in (see Wilson, pp. 738 and 745). “Lawrence had taken part in the preliminary planning of the Arab uprising and, in October 1916, was ordered to Jiddah to assess the military situation. What followed is recorded in Seven Pillars of Wisdom , a personal, emotional narrative of the Arab revolt in which Lawrence reveals how by sheer willpower he made history. It was a testimony to his vision and persistence and a fulfilment of his desire to write an epic which might stand comparison in scale and linguistic elegance with his beloved Morte d’Arthur and C. M. Doughty’s Arabia deserta . Subtitled ‘A triumph’, its climax is the Arab
liberation of Damascus, a victory which successfully concludes a gruelling campaign and vindicates Lawrence’s faith in the Arabs. In a way Seven Pillars is a sort of Pilgrim’s Progress , with Lawrence as Christian, a figure sustained by his faith in the Arabs, successively overcoming physical and moral obstacles” ( ODNB ). In a letter to George Bernard Shaw he described his book as an effort to combine “record of fact” and “work of art”, “to make history an imaginative thing” (Karachi, 7/5/28). The Cranwell edition of Seven Pillars is the earliest achievable, following the unprocurable Oxford Times edition of 1922, of which there were just eight copies printed. An abridged edition, Revolt in the Desert , was published in 1927. The work was not published in an unabridged trade edition for the general public until 1935. Quarto (254 × 184 mm). Original tan pigskin by Bumpus of Oxford Street, spine lettered in gilt with five raised bands, blind “hinge” device extending to sides from each raised band, original pictorial endpapers by Eric Kennington, gilt edges. Housed in custom brown cloth solander box. With 66 plates printed by Whittingham & Griggs, including frontispiece portrait of Feisal by Augustus John, many coloured or tinted, 4 of them double- page, by Eric Kennington, William Roberts, Augustus John, William Nicholson, Paul Nash and others, 4 folding colour-printed maps, that is 2 maps duplicated, rather than the 3 called for by O’Brien, 58 illustrations in text, one coloured, by Roberts, Nash, Kennington, Blair Hughes-Stanton, Gertrude Hermes and others. Historiated initials by Edward Wadsworth printed in red and black. Binding just a little rubbed at extremities, mild toning to pastedowns. An excellent copy. ¶ O’Brien A040. Jeremy Wilson, Lawrence of Arabia: The Authorised Biography of T. E. Lawrence , 1989. £85,000 [152493]
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