LAWRENCE, T. E.

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Secret Despatches from Arabia. First edition, number 16 of 30 copies bound in pigskin and with a six-page facsimile of part of the Seven Pillars of Wisdom manuscript, this copy with the publisher's bookplate. "The majority of Lawrence's contributions to the Arab Bulletin are published in this volume. In addition to these items, 'Syrian Cross Currents', previously unpublished, is included; this was taken from a manuscript on Arab Bureau paper" (O'Brien).The Arab Bureau's confidential bulletin, founded at Lawrence's instigation shortly after his return to Cairo from Mesopotamia, summarized developments in the Near East and supplemented the intelligence bulletin circulated by the General Staff of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force. Contributors included Lawrence (who also edited the first nine issues), Gertrude Bell, David Hogarth, and others, as well as officials in Jeddah and Egypt. It "included regional political and personality profiles in addition to military assessments of troop strength, dispositions, and movements, often accompanied by firsthand accounts of fighting in Arabia by British observers. Reaction to developments in Arabia from throughout the Muslim world were also carefully monitored in the Bulletin" (Westrate, p. 103). Publication began on 6 June 1916 and the circulation was initially only 26 copies. The final instalment, number 114, was issued on 13 August 1919.Secret Despatches from Arabia, the first commercial appearance of Lawrence's reports for the bulletin

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