London, Privately Printed, 1926
The cranwell edition, lord rennell's copy with autograph letter from Lawrence discussing the book. A beautiful copy of the Cranwell Edition, one of only 170 complete copies initialled 'complete' by Lawrence on page XIX, with a tipped-in autograph letter from Lawrence to fellow First World War soldier Francis Rodd, 2nd Baron Rennell, the first owner of this copy, discussing whether he would receive the Cranwell or regular edition. And with 'Some Notes on the Writing of the Seven Pillars of Wisdom' by T.E. Shaw, which was often used as a prospectus for Seven Pillars.
This copy, in common with most complete copies, has page XV mis-paginated as VIII, and Kennington's coloured landscape tail-piece ('False Quiet') at the end of page XVIII. The 'Prickly Pear' plate is included, but as usual not the two Paul Nash line drawings putatively called for on pages 92 ('The prophet's tomb') and 208 ('A garden'), or the Blair Hughes-Stanton wood-engraving that in some copies illustrated the dedicatory poem.
Seven Pillars of Wisdom is Lawrence's epic masterpiece, in which he 'reveals how by sheer willpower he made history' (ODNB). Following his extraordinary military and diplomatic career in Arabia, and having already become a legendary figure in the public imagination, T.E. Lawrence purchased his Dorset cottage retreat Clouds Hill in 1924 to write his book about the war. The first draft of Seven Pillars of Wisdom was completed by November 1919, but soon lost, according to the author, on Reading Station. A second draft was finished during 1922, and finally appeared as a private edition, reflecting Lawrence's love of fine printing, in the present form in 1926. An abridged version, Revolt in the Desert, was published in 1927.
'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).
Francis James Rennell Rodd, second Baron Rennell (1895–1978) 'was formally educated at Eton College and, for a year, at Balliol College, Oxford, which he left in September 1914 to join the Royal Field Artillery. He served in France in 1914–15 but was then seconded to intelligence duties in Italy, in 1916. In 1917 he became a staff officer in the Middle East and served in Libya, Sinai, Egypt, Palestine, and Syria; finally he became staff captain, Arab bureau, at Damascus. He earned a mention in dispatches and was awarded the Italian order of St Maurice and Lazarus' (ODNB). After the war he briefly joined the diplomatic service and then spent the rest of his career as a banker. 'As a youth Rennell had been 'extremely beautiful' (Hastings, 81), and he remained a striking man. However, he was reserved, and his sister-in-law, Nancy Mitford, painted an unsympathetic picture of him as the pompous Luke in her novel Pigeon Pie (1940); his colleagues at the RGS, while recognizing that he could be brusque and even formidable, also remembered his tremendous flourish of a large and gaily-coloured handkerchief after taking snuff' (ODNB).
The tipped-in letter from Lawrence to Rennell is dated November 6th, 1925. Lawrence begins by discussing Rennell's offer of his London flat for Lawrence's use: 'Your offer of the flat is uncommonly kind: it hit me close: but my affairs don't point to my being able to use it much. Week-ends at Cranwell are only alternate Saturday nights...' He goes on to explain that 'You shall have, since you want it, a copy of the new text: but it will be one of the plain texts, complete in every way as regards the letterpress, but short in the illustrations. Most people will regard them as no loss. It will be a handier book to move from one dwelling to another. The complete edition will be so very large and heavy. These plain texts have been produced for the fellows who shared in the Arab business, and who are not rich enough to spend thirty guineas on a memento of it. You come well under that category. They are paid for by the subscribers (the ultra-rich, the Haslamians etc.) and so virtue is served: i.e. they are distributed gratis...'
A manuscript note by Rennell dated 1927, on the recto of the introduction to the section Foundations of Revolt, explains that, 'This book was given to Francis Rodd by T.E.L. It was received in January 1927 as a complete copy, despite the fact that T.E.L.'s letter only promised an incomplete version lacking most of the illustrations'. A later note, dated 1968, in his hand explains that the six letters from Lawrence to Rodd originally 'pasted in the fly leaves' of this copy had been taken out and bound separately, with the relevant letter presumably being removed again and re-tipped onto the front blank sometime after that.
The Cranwell (Subscribers') edition; 66 plates and 58 illustrations within the text; blue crushed morocco, unsigned but likely by Tout, spine gilt in compartments with 5 raised bands, simple gilt panelling to boards, pictorial endpapers, housed in a red crushed morocco folding case; 659pp.
This copy, in common with most complete copies, has page XV mis-paginated as VIII, and Kennington's coloured landscape tail-piece ('False Quiet') at the end of page XVIII. The 'Prickly Pear' plate is included, but as usual not the two Paul Nash line drawings putatively called for on pages 92 ('The prophet's tomb') and 208 ('A garden'), or the Blair Hughes-Stanton wood-engraving that in some copies illustrated the dedicatory poem.
Seven Pillars of Wisdom is Lawrence's epic masterpiece, in which he 'reveals how by sheer willpower he made history' (ODNB). Following his extraordinary military and diplomatic career in Arabia, and having already become a legendary figure in the public imagination, T.E. Lawrence purchased his Dorset cottage retreat Clouds Hill in 1924 to write his book about the war. The first draft of Seven Pillars of Wisdom was completed by November 1919, but soon lost, according to the author, on Reading Station. A second draft was finished during 1922, and finally appeared as a private edition, reflecting Lawrence's love of fine printing, in the present form in 1926. An abridged version, Revolt in the Desert, was published in 1927.
'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).
Francis James Rennell Rodd, second Baron Rennell (1895–1978) 'was formally educated at Eton College and, for a year, at Balliol College, Oxford, which he left in September 1914 to join the Royal Field Artillery. He served in France in 1914–15 but was then seconded to intelligence duties in Italy, in 1916. In 1917 he became a staff officer in the Middle East and served in Libya, Sinai, Egypt, Palestine, and Syria; finally he became staff captain, Arab bureau, at Damascus. He earned a mention in dispatches and was awarded the Italian order of St Maurice and Lazarus' (ODNB). After the war he briefly joined the diplomatic service and then spent the rest of his career as a banker. 'As a youth Rennell had been 'extremely beautiful' (Hastings, 81), and he remained a striking man. However, he was reserved, and his sister-in-law, Nancy Mitford, painted an unsympathetic picture of him as the pompous Luke in her novel Pigeon Pie (1940); his colleagues at the RGS, while recognizing that he could be brusque and even formidable, also remembered his tremendous flourish of a large and gaily-coloured handkerchief after taking snuff' (ODNB).
The tipped-in letter from Lawrence to Rennell is dated November 6th, 1925. Lawrence begins by discussing Rennell's offer of his London flat for Lawrence's use: 'Your offer of the flat is uncommonly kind: it hit me close: but my affairs don't point to my being able to use it much. Week-ends at Cranwell are only alternate Saturday nights...' He goes on to explain that 'You shall have, since you want it, a copy of the new text: but it will be one of the plain texts, complete in every way as regards the letterpress, but short in the illustrations. Most people will regard them as no loss. It will be a handier book to move from one dwelling to another. The complete edition will be so very large and heavy. These plain texts have been produced for the fellows who shared in the Arab business, and who are not rich enough to spend thirty guineas on a memento of it. You come well under that category. They are paid for by the subscribers (the ultra-rich, the Haslamians etc.) and so virtue is served: i.e. they are distributed gratis...'
A manuscript note by Rennell dated 1927, on the recto of the introduction to the section Foundations of Revolt, explains that, 'This book was given to Francis Rodd by T.E.L. It was received in January 1927 as a complete copy, despite the fact that T.E.L.'s letter only promised an incomplete version lacking most of the illustrations'. A later note, dated 1968, in his hand explains that the six letters from Lawrence to Rodd originally 'pasted in the fly leaves' of this copy had been taken out and bound separately, with the relevant letter presumably being removed again and re-tipped onto the front blank sometime after that.
The Cranwell (Subscribers') edition; 66 plates and 58 illustrations within the text; blue crushed morocco, unsigned but likely by Tout, spine gilt in compartments with 5 raised bands, simple gilt panelling to boards, pictorial endpapers, housed in a red crushed morocco folding case; 659pp.
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