Lawrence and the Arabs.

A first edition, with the scarce original dust-jacket, of Robert Graves' account of Lawrence's exploits in WWI and the Arab Revolt. It was published the same year as The Revolt in the Desert, the abridgement of Seven Pillars by Lawrence which would be the only publicly available text of Seven Pillars in his lifetime.

It not only streamlines but adds many historical details and contexts to Lawrence's actions which the The Revolt in the Desert does not. The four maps are important as they are also something new added to the narrative and gives considerable guidance to the reader not just geographically but also in the chronology of the events which Lawrence experienced.

Robert Graves (1895-1985) was one of Lawrence's closest friends, knowing him from his Oxford days, and one of the five entrusted by Lawrence to give feedback on the 1922 "Oxford" text of Seven Pillars. His closeness to Lawrence, and personal experiences of the war in the Royal Welch Fusiliers, lent a personal touch to the autobiography as well as laying bare the violence and deceit with which the British military establishment treated Arabs and the idea of a united Arab nation.

First edition; 8vo (20.5 x 15 cm); 24 plates including frontispiece, 4 maps, with the advert sheet for 'Arabia Deserta' bound after p.448 as issued, bookplate to pastedown; publisher's brown cloth, spine lettered in gilt, original dust-jacket worn with small tears to spine and corners, cloth a little bumped, a very good copy; 454pp.

Higginson & Williams A26; O'Brien E030.