The Arab Bureau was a section of the Cairo Intelligence Department during the First World War, established in January 1916 to harmonise British political activity in the Near East. “Harry” Goldie, was attached at some point in 1916 or 1917 to the Arab Bureau in Cairo. The copy offered for sale is inscribed ‘Incomplete copy, I.XII,26, TES’ and has an autograph letter from Lawrence to Harry Goldie tipped in.Ĭaptain H.M. It is one of these ‘incomplete’ copies that we will offer on 8 February 2023. Unlike the complete copies these are inscribed or presented by Lawrence himself, and therefore have a much greater and more personal connection with Lawrence than the subscribers’ copies.

However in addition to the Subscriber’s edition, Lawrence also reserved 32 ‘incomplete’ copies – textually complete copies that did not have the full tally of plates – to give to close friends and colleagues who had been actively involved with him in the military campaign in the Arabian peninsula. The finished work of the Subscriber’s edition comprised only 170 copies and sold for the then exorbitant price of 30 guineas. They have been done by British artists whom I liked, & who would work for me' (letter, sold as part of The Spiro Family collection, Christie's New York, 26 February 2004, lot 96). Shepardson of 15 October 1924: 'The prime cost lies in the pictures (about 60, many in colour, at 10/- a print!) and the pictures are only an unjustifiable whim of mine. The technical printing problems were in large part responsible for the delays in the book's publication and the ever-increasing cost of the work, as Lawrence explained in a letter to Whitney H. The plates for Lawrence's masterpiece were one of the most technically demanding and expensive aspects of the privately-printed subscribers' edition issued in 1926, one print necessitating the use of 23 colours, an unheard of extravagance. Lawrence chose to make his publication a magnificent visual feast as well as a literary tour-de-force, commissioning illustrations from some of the best-known artists of the period – Eric Kennington, Augustus John, William Roberts, Paul Nash and William Rothenstein, amongst others.

| SEVEN PILLARS OF WISDOM, A TRIUMPH | Sold for £52,700 incl premium

Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1926) is prized as one of the greatest English books of the 20th century, ostensibly a record of Lawrence’s experiences marshalling the Arab revolt against the Ottoman empire in the First World War, but also a deeply lyrical personal odyssey, ‘a testimony to his vision and persistence and a fulfilment of his desire to write an epic which might stand comparison in scale and linguistic elegance with his beloved Morte d’Arthur and C.M.

Te lawrence seven pillars