Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Book in excellent unread/unused condition. Limited edition only 340 copies. Hardcover. English. See images for condition.

About the book >.>.> This is a unique and very personal record regarding the printing of a book which has become almost as legendary as its author. This book is the 1926 Cranwell edition of T.E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom. In an account such as this one can excuse the occasional lapse of memory when events of many years before are being recalled. According to a contemporary handwritten note by Lawrence the author and private publisher Pike and Hodgson actually printed some 211 copies. This note now preserved at The Humanities Research Center The University of Texas tells us that these comprised 170 complete copies 32 incomplete copies and a further 9 proof sheets ‘more or less defective.’ An alteration in the manuscript indicates that 128 of the complete copies were supplied to 127 subscribers who had paid 30 guineas per copy for the privilege. Lawrence further records that he gave 19 complete copies to ‘architects of the edition’ 17 complete copies ‘as a duty or to people who pleased his whim’ whilst 26 incomplete copies went ‘to people mentioned in the book or people who had been officially or personally useful to the Arab Revolt.’ The remaining copies were retained for future disposal either by subscrip-tion or gift. Hodgson is not too far out whe when he states that cach copy had cost Lawrence in the region of ?90 to produce. The total cost was ?13000 equating at a cost of stound ?76 for each complete copy or just over ?too for cach subscribed copy. (LL)