Lot 132
Lawrence, T.E.
Seven Pillars of Wisdom, a triumph
Rare Books, Manuscripts, Maps & Photographs | 644
Auction: 23 June 2021 at 11:00 BST
Description
London: Jonathan Cape, 1935. First trade edition, a unique "grangerised" copy, compiled by Eric Kennington, the 'art editor' of the 1926 or 'Subscribers' edition, who created this 1935 edition as a record of his friendship with T.E. Lawrence. Included are photographed pages from one of the only six surviving copies of the 1922 Oxford edition, including the whole of the deleted "Chapter 1", as well as other sections, inserted at relevant places within the volume. He also photographed some of the many illustrations from the 1926 'Subscribers' or 'Cranwell' edition, placing these within the pages of this 1935 copy and on occasion adding hand-written captions. This included photographs of the wood-engraved endpapers created by Kennington, together with a typed extract of a copy of a letter dated 1922 from Lawrence to Kennington discussing these engravings. Kennington also typed details of the 1922 copy that he used, 'the fourth of eight copies' and transcribes the different version of the poem to S.A. that was typed within this copy. It will be recalled that two of the eight "1922" editions were broken up in the production of the "1926" edition. Considering the copying procedures of the period the completion of this grangerised volume must have been a time-consuming labour of love, volume preserved in brown cloth folding box
Footnote
Note: "Fourteen years friendship & 5 years work is great wealth. Eric H. Kennington, Jan. 1936" - so Kennington summarises on the front endpaper his relationship with Lawrence creating the 1926 'Subscribers' edition of Seven Pillars of Wisdom.
The extract quoted from a letter from Lawrence to Kennington dated 27/10/22 reads "...Your drawings are wonderful. The Dysentry. The Nightmare. The Snowstorm. I never imagined my chance of getting such pictures... There's a hypnotic suggestion about your work which makes me give in to it, when I stare at it. So I like THE DREAM very much in retrospect... There was a little bit of land behind the palm tree, leading to the sword, which felt peaceful. The sword is odd. The Arab Movement was one: Feisal another (his name means a flashing sword), then there is the excluded notion, the Garden of Eden touch: and the division meaning like the sword in the bed of mixed sleeping, from the Morte d'Arthur. I don't know which was in your mind, but they all came to me AND THE SWORD ALSO MEANS CLEAN-NESS AND DEATH".