First (or Cranwell) edition, published for subscribers. One of 170 'complete' copies inscribed and initialled by Lawrence "Complete copy, 1.xii.26. T.E.S." on page XIX, with the author's holograph emendation to the attribution of "The gad-fly" plate. As usually issued with the "The Prickly Pear" plate, not called for but not the two Paul Nash illustrations, shown in the list of illustrations. Original dark green morocco by Roger de Coverly, with gilt titles to the spine, gilt filleted borders to covers with roundels to the corners and central knot device of woven strapwork. Raised bands to spine each with five gilt punched dots. Top edge gilt, others uncut. Gilt border to board edges and turn ins. Endpapers by Eric Kennington. Frontispiece of King Feysal by Augustus John, 65 further plates (mostly colour or tinted, four of them double page) and 58 text illustrations by John, Kennington, Williams Roberts, Paul Nash, Blair Hughes-Stanton, William Nicholson and others. Four fold-out colour maps (two maps duplicated). A superb, fine copy, with just a hint of wear to the corners. Internally very fresh. An extremely well preserved example of this monumental work. Housed in a custom chemise and quarter morocco clamshell box.

The author's magnum opus and famous account of his part in the Arab Revolt of 1916. The Seven Pillars was originally intended to be a simple account of the travels round seven great cities of the East that Lawrence made in his pursuit of his interest in Middle-Eastern archaeology. This manuscript, written in 1913 was supposedly destroyed at the outbreak of the first world war. With his understanding of the Middle East and the Arabs, Captain Lawrence soon found himself working with military intelligence in Cairo and liaising between the British and Arab forces, which lead to him helping to unite Arab forces in support of the British strategy in the region and ultimately co-ordinating successful campaigns against the Ottoman army.
His account, which originally ran to over 400,000 words, was printed by the Oxford Times in 1922 and the positive response given to the text by Lawrence's friends led him to consider publishing it to a wider audience. Lawrence never considered the text to be suitable for or of interest to the public at large and so made it available only to friends and acquaintances by subscription to this Cranwell edition.
Lawrence supervised the production at every stage and extravagantly had each copy bound in a different way by leading fine binders of the day (an act that virtually bankrupted him).
Lawrence vowed that the text would not be made publicly available in his lifetime. However, of financial necessity he authorised Jonathan Cape to publish a heavily abridged and sanitised version under the title of Revolt in the Desert in 1927, which stirred public interest to an extent that Cape was induced to publish most of the full text within two months of Lawrence's death in 1935. It became an immediate best seller with 100,000 copies sold in the remainder of that year alone, and has since gone on to be one of the most influential and highly regarded pieces of military and literary prose of the twentieth century.
Churchill was of the opinion, "It ranks with the greatest books written in the English language."

O'Brian A040

Stock ID: 32689