Oriental Assembly.

£500 · Offered by Shapero Rare Books

First edition of this collection of Lawrence's works published here for the first time. The first part contains his diary he kept during his journey through Syria in 1911, the product of which was his Crusader Castles, a series of character sketches of many of his Arab friends which appeared in Seven Pillars, two essays he wrote for newspapers, and the suppressed introductory chapter to Seven Pillars which to this point had been unpublished on the advice of George Bernard Shaw due to it being too revealing. In it he admits it was his desire "to make a new nation, to restore a lost influence, to give twenty millions of Semites the foundations on which to build an inspired dream-palace of their national thoughts." but also was in agreement with the British strategy of "turning to our uses the hands of the oppressed in Turkey", by which he means use the Arab Revolt to British ends. The second part contains more than 100 photographs taken by Lawrence during the Arab Revolt, many of which did not find their way into Seven Pillars. Owned by a Major of the Arab Legion in 1947. First edition, first impression; 8vo (22.5 x 15 cm); 2 line illustrations, 129 photographic plates, 1 map, 1 plan, 1 plate of Lawrence's diary reproduced, previous ownership inscription dated 1947; publisher's brown buckram, spine lettered in gilt, printed dust-jacket price-clipped, dust-jacket a little rubbed with a couple of chips to spine head and foot, a fine copy in a very good dust-jacket; xii, 164pp. O'

• Binding: Hardcover

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