T.E. Seven Pillars of Wisdom a triumph.

by LAWRENCE

£7,000 · Offered by Henry Sotheran Ltd

T. E. Lawrence's Earthly Paradise together with 20 Original Photographs LAWRENCE, T.E. Seven Pillars of Wisdom a triumph. London: Jonathan Cape. 1935. 4to. Original brown buckram, spine lettered in gilt, upper board blocked in gilt with crossed sword design, top edges brown, others uncut; pp. 672; frontispiece and 47 photogravure plates by John Swain Son after Augustus John, Eric Kennington, Lawrence, and others, four folding maps printed by The Chiswick Press, Ltd in red and black and bound to throw clear; minimal fading to extremities, no offsetting from endpapers or frontispiece as frequently the case; a very clean and crisp copy, largely unopened; with an intriguing provenance and mostly unpublished photographs of T. E. Lawrence's last home, Clouds Hill, as well as snapshots of his funeral. First trade edition, first printing. Seven Pillars of Wisdom was first printed in 1922 in an edition of eight copies intended for Lawrence's use, of which only six copies survive intact; the 'Subscribers' or 'Cranwell' edition then followed in 1926, published privately in an edition of circa 211 copies and, as Lawrence wrote to Sotheran's on 24 April 1925, 'this thing is being given only to my friends and their friends. No copies are for sale'; and finally, after Lawrence's death in May 1935, the text was published in a trade edition by Jonathan Cape in July 1935. Such was the book's popularity that the first impression was quickly exhausted and second, third and fourth impressions wer

• Binding: Hardcover

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