Seven Pillars of Wisdom, the U.S. publisher's quarter leather limited edition, copy #448 of 750, an unread copy with uncut signatures, retaining the publisher's dust jacket and slipcase.
New York: Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., 1935. First, Limited edition. Hardcover. This is the publisher's finely bound, limited, hand-numbered issue of the U.S. first edition in the original dust jacket and slipcase. This U.S. limited issue is bound in quarter dark brown pigskin over maroon buckram boards with beveled edges, maroon top edge, and red and yellow head and foot bands. It was issued with a dust jacket and stout cardboard slipcase, both in brown paper with laid paper chain and wire lines. The dust jacket is printed only on the spine, the slipcase unadorned. Here is copy #448 of 750, hand numbered thus on the limitation page.
Condition of this copy is, well, variable. In short, this is a superlative candidate for re-backing. Owing to this book’s lifelong protection within the slipcase, the contents are absolutely pristine. The book is literally unread; all signatures remain uncut. The contents are crisp, clean, and bright with no spotting or previous ownership marks, perfect topstain, and immaculate untrimmed fore and bottom edges. The beveled-edge buckram boards are likewise flawlessly bright and clean. The leather spine is a wreck – toned, chipped at the spine ends, split along the upper two thirds of the front joint, and with a chip loss at the center front joint. The original paper-covered card slipcase is fully intact, though soiled, scuffed, and toned, with chips to the paper along the opening. The original dust jacket is in pieces, the covers, the front panels and flaps completely detached from the spine, which is in multiple pieces. The jacket is preserved separately in a plastic sleeve.
Seven Pillars of Wisdom is the story of T. E. Lawrence's (1888-1935) remarkable odyssey as instigator, organizer, hero, and tragic figure of the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire during the First World War, which he began as an eccentric junior intelligence officer and ended as "Lawrence of Arabia." This time defined Lawrence with indelible experience and celebrity, which he spent the rest of his famously short life struggling to reconcile and reject, to recount and repress. Lawrence famously resisted publication of Seven Pillars for the general public during his lifetime. The saga is remarkable. He nearly completed a massive first draft in 1919, only to famously lose it when his briefcase was mislaid at a train station. It was never recovered. At a fever pitch, Lawrence wrote a new 400,000 word draft in 1920. This punishing burst of writing was followed by an equally brutal process of editing. In 1922, a 335,000 word version was circulated only to select friends and literary critics - the famous "Oxford Text". George Bernard Shaw called it "a masterpiece".
Nonetheless, Lawrence was unready to see it distributed to the public. Finally, in 1926, a further edited 250,000 word "Subscribers' Edition" was produced by Lawrence - but fewer than 200 copies were made, each lavishly and uniquely bound. The process cost Lawrence more than he made in subscriptions. To recover the loss, Lawrence finally authorized an edition for the general public - but one even further abridged, titled "Revolt in the Desert". Only in the summer of 1935, in the weeks following Lawrence's death, was the text of the Subscribers' Edition finally published for circulation to the general public. Simultaneous with both the British and U.S. general trade first editions were finely bound, hand-numbered limited editions of 750 copies, the respective British and U.S. limited issues of course substantively differing in appearance. Please anticipate the possibility of additional shipping cost for this large, heavy book, depending on destination.
Reference: O'Brien A053. Item #008073
Price: $450.00