A Triumph. The Complete 1922 Text.
Fordingbridge, Castle Hill Press, 1997
The complete facsimile text of the fabled Oxford 1922 printing of Seven Pillars, with the 48 plates which accompanied the 1926 Subscriber's issue, and 80 photographs of Lawrence and the Bedouin tribes largely from the Imperial War Museum. This work was the first time the 1922 Pillars was published outside of that original private run commissioned by Lawrence.
A third longer than the commercial edition of 1926, the 1922 printing was seen by publishers as 'a direct commercial threat to the highly profitable investment they had already made.' This meant no commercial publisher undertook publishing the 1922 text until Castle Hill Press in 1997.
Jeremy Wilson (1944-2017), widely considered the leading authority in Lawrence, was the editor and sought to create the ultimate definitive text. Basing the text on Lawrence's corrected Oxford Times proof, this was cross-referenced with the Bodleian Library manuscript. Also restored were the printer's omissions not corrected by Lawrence, and the hundreds of amendments made by Lawrence to his own copy of the printed text. This resulted in a version superior to either the 1922 Oxford proofs and the original manuscript.
Limited edition, number 68 of 80 sets in full morocco; 3 volumes, 4to (29 x 21 cm); 128 plates including frontis, 40 full colour illustrations and 80 duotone photographs, 2 folding colour maps loose in protective folder; two text volumes in publisher's full blue morocco, gilt lettering to spine in 6 compartments, gilt inner dentelles, all edges gilt, with plate volume in publisher's blue morocco backed cloth boards, top edge gilt, and folder of maps, all in publisher's cloth slip-case, slipcase a little rubbed otherwise a fine extravagant set; xxii, 433; [10], (435)-879, [1]; [4], [6], 81pp.
A third longer than the commercial edition of 1926, the 1922 printing was seen by publishers as 'a direct commercial threat to the highly profitable investment they had already made.' This meant no commercial publisher undertook publishing the 1922 text until Castle Hill Press in 1997.
Jeremy Wilson (1944-2017), widely considered the leading authority in Lawrence, was the editor and sought to create the ultimate definitive text. Basing the text on Lawrence's corrected Oxford Times proof, this was cross-referenced with the Bodleian Library manuscript. Also restored were the printer's omissions not corrected by Lawrence, and the hundreds of amendments made by Lawrence to his own copy of the printed text. This resulted in a version superior to either the 1922 Oxford proofs and the original manuscript.
Limited edition, number 68 of 80 sets in full morocco; 3 volumes, 4to (29 x 21 cm); 128 plates including frontis, 40 full colour illustrations and 80 duotone photographs, 2 folding colour maps loose in protective folder; two text volumes in publisher's full blue morocco, gilt lettering to spine in 6 compartments, gilt inner dentelles, all edges gilt, with plate volume in publisher's blue morocco backed cloth boards, top edge gilt, and folder of maps, all in publisher's cloth slip-case, slipcase a little rubbed otherwise a fine extravagant set; xxii, 433; [10], (435)-879, [1]; [4], [6], 81pp.
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