The Seven Pillars of Wisdom. A Triumph. T. E. Lawrence. Subscriber’s Edition 1926. 1926.
You can view our first edition of The Seven Pillars of Wisdom here.
Presented by Adam Douglas, Senior Specialist in Literature at Peter Harrington Rare Books.
Quarto (250 x 188 mm). Original tan morocco gilt, gilt-lettered and ruled, edges gilt, by Sangorski & Sutcliffe. 66 plates, including frontispiece portrait of Feisal by Augustus John, many in colour or tinted, 4 of them double-page, by Eric Kennington, William Roberts, Augustus John, William Nicholson, Paul Nash and others, 4 folding, linen-backed coloured maps – that is 2 mapsrations in text, one coloured, by Roberts, Nash, Kennington, Blair-Hughes-Stanton, Gertrude Hermes and others, initials by Edward Wadsworth. duplicated – rather than the 3 mistakenly called for by O’Brien, 58 illustrations in text, one coloured, by Roberts, Nash, Kenning, Blair Hughes-Stanton, Gertrude Hermes and others, historiated initials by Edward Wadsworth printed in red and black. Provenance: Nancy Campbell, the original subscriber, her bookplate on flyleaf, together with correspondence from T. E. Lawrence, Manning Pike, and Pierce C. Joyce; Barbara Hutton (1912-1979) heiress to Frank Winfield Woolworth, ownership inscription on flyleaf: “Barbara Haugwitz-Reventlow 1941”.
One of the Cranwell or subscriber’s edition of 211 copies, this one of 170 “complete copies”, inscribed by Lawrence on p. XIX “Complete copy. 1.XII.26 TES”, with his manuscript correction to the illustration list, a “K” identifying Kennington rather than Roberts as the artist responsible for “The gad-fly”; page XV mispaginated as VIII; and with neither the two Paul Nash illustrations called for on pages 92 and 208, nor the Blair Hughes-Stanton wood engraving illustrating the dedicatory poem, which is found in only five copies. However, it does include the “Prickly Pear” plate, not called for in the list of illustrations.
This handsome and beautifully preserved copy is accompanied by a clutch of related correspondence concerning Lawrence’s “big book” from the original subscriber, Mrs Colin Campbell. Nancy Leiter, daughter of the Chicago financier and philanthropist Levi Z. Leiter, had married Major Colin Powys Campbell, formerly Central Indian Horse, in 1904. Nancy’s elder sister Mary was married to Lord Curzon and her younger sister Daisy became Countess of Suffolk, making them three of the most prominent “Dollar Princesses” of the period.
a) LAWRENCE, T. E. Autograph letter signed (“Yours very truly, T. E. Shaw, used to be Lawrence”), dated Cranwell, Lincolnshire, England, 16 September 1926. Two pages, recto and verso of a single octavo leaf, with the original mailing envelope addressed in Lawrence’s hand.
b) JOYCE, Colonel Pierce C. Two substantial autograph letters signed from Colonel Pierce C. Joyce, a friend of Mrs Campbell and her late husband, and a key player in the Arab Revolt. Joyce was a Boer War veteran, and was on Staff at Cairo from 1907.
c) PIKE, Roy Manning, printer of the 1926 Seven Pillars. Two letters, signed (“Manning Pike”), from London, the first a typed letter, 8 1927, one page, about shipping; the second, an autograph letter, 15 August 1927, one page, enclosing a second copy of Some Notes on the Writing of the Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T. E. Shaw (O’Brien A039, 200 copies)
d) CAMPBELL, Nancy. Two manuscript drafts: the first a two-page letter, signed (“N. Campbell, Mrs. Colin Campbell”) to T. E. Lawrence (“Sir”), Campbell Ranch, Goleta, California, 30 October , writing of her excitement at being a subscriber – “Thank you very much for allowing me to have the privilege of subscribing”; the second a three-page autograph letter signed (“N.C.”) to Messrs Manning Pike, on letterhead of the Drake Hotel, Chicago, undated, arranging shipping of her copy of Seven Pillars.
