His own proof copy, given to Charlotte Shaw, his most enthusiastic early supporter
46 LAWRENCE, T. E.
The author’s own proof copy, which was later given by him to George Bernard Shaw’s wife, Charlotte, containing several annotations, including an ink curl mark at the foot of pages 119, 176, and 536, a large pencil mark on the inner margin of page 525, and the pencilled word “extra” on the inner margin of page 527. This is the copy described by O’Brien: “One copy (23.3 × 18.8 cm) bound in black pigskin, all edges black, with no plates. Thought to be Lawrence’s proof copy.” That this is Lawrence’s own proof is confirmed by his correspondence with Charlotte Shaw, published after O’Brien’s bibliography. Lawrence had nine proof copies prepared from spoiled sheets, including one sent to himself as “A/c Shaw”. Before Lawrence left for India at the end of 1926, he gave this proof to Charlotte Shaw, but asked her to return it to him. On his recall from Miramshah in 1929, Charlotte asked to borrow it again, wanting a manageable copy to read during a trip to Italy. In a letter of 18 March 1929, Lawrence writes: “Yes, it would be easy to cut down the S.P. into a smaller and handier size . . . but imagine anyone wanting it ‘handy to read’. Sounds like a bed-side book . . . There is no vandalism in connection with modern books: and personally, if I could afford it, and wanted it, I wouldn’t hesitate to have a 1st Folio Shakespeare cut up into separate plays for my private reading.” In order to lend it to her, Lawrence retrieved it from Charles Douglas St Leger, a partner at Sir Herbert Baker’s office, where the first draft of Seven Pillars was written. In a letter of 12 April 1929, he reassures Charlotte: “Of course you shall have the cut-down S.P. and any other S.P. you want! You were one of the architects. I hope St. Ledger [ sic ] will bring it round to you in time.” The relationship between T. E. Lawrence and Charlotte Shaw has been described by Rhoda Nathan as “a species of spiritual love affair, overcoming the 20-year gap in age and the disparity of their upbringing and life patterns”. When Lawrence sent the first draft of his lengthy manuscript to Bernard Shaw asking for editorial advice, Shaw replied he had no time, but Charlotte declared herself to be “mad keen” to read it. She wrote to Lawrence on 31 December 1922 in fervent encouragement: “Now is it conceivable, imaginable, that a man who could write the Seven Pillars can have any doubts about it? If you don’t know it is a ‘great book’ what is the use of telling you so . . . It is one of the most amazingly individual documents that has ever been written: there is no ‘style’ because it is above and beyond anything so silly”.
pages, a very good copy. ¶ O’Brien A040. Rhoda Nathan, “Kindred Spirits: Charlotte Shaw & T.E. Lawrence”, The Independent Shavian , Vol. 45, No. 1/3, 2008, pp. 28–34; Jeremy Wilson, Lawrence of Arabia: The Authorised Biography of T. E. Lawrence , 1989. The proof copies are noted in a Lawrence manuscript (now at the University of Texas) entitled “History of Seven Pillars”, printed in facsimile in the Texas Quarterly , vol. V, no. 3, Autumn 1962. Provenance: Charlotte Shaw (1857–1943); acquired by the American bookdealer Jacob Schwartz, probably sometime after the death of George Bernard Shaw in 1950; sold by him to Stanley Bray (1907–1995), managing director of Sangorski & Sutcliffe, who had the folding case made; sold by Bray in 1963 to Moses Harry Mushlin, book runner and specialist in Shaw; sold by Mishlin around August 1963 to the Canadian urologist and collector Dr E. Bruce Tovee (1914–1989); sold at auction, Christie’s New York, 7 December 1990, lot 6; Spiro Family, auction, Christie’s New York, 26 February 2004, lot 97.
Seven Pillars of Wisdom. [London: privately printed by Manning Pike and C. J. Hodgson,] 1926 £97,500 Quarto (trimmed by the binder to 233 × 180 mm from the usual size of 254 × 190 mm). Original black pigskin specially bound for the author, plain white endpapers, black edges. Housed in a custom orange red morocco folding case by Sangorski & Sutcliffe. Bound, as usual for proof copies, without the 66 plates, pictorial endpapers, and folding maps found in regular copies, some of the woodcut text illustrations and decorative initials imperfectly printed. With the very rare Blair Hughes-Stanton woodcut illustrating the dedicatory poem, printed on heavier stock than the india proof paper used in the other four recorded copies with it, trimmed and pasted to the front free endpaper verso. Extremities lightly rubbed, a little minor surface whitening to sides from waxy residue affecting the varnish, small rust mark from paperclip at head of blank preceding title, a few minor spots to the extreme lower margin of the first 200
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SIXTY FINE ITEMS
All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk
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