Skip to main content

This auction has ended. View lot details

You may also be interested in

Own a similar item?

Submit your item online for a free auction estimate.

Lot 67

LAWRENCE (T.E.)

10 November 2009, 11:00 GMT
London, New Bond Street

Sold for £2,160 inc. premium

Own a similar item?

Submit your item online for a free auction estimate.

How to sell

Looking for a similar item?

Our Books & Manuscripts specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.

Find your local specialist

LAWRENCE (T.E.)

Autograph letter signed ("T.E.S."), to his Miranshah friend, Corporal Jack Easton ("Dear Corporal"), with whom he had shared the wireless operator's hut at Miranshah Fort on the borders of Afghanistan, describing his present life at RAF Cattewater, Plymouth, and his visit to Easton's wife and family ("...The two kids were great sport: one of them your exact image. So decent & clean, & quiet. The whole show pleased me..."); he also looks back on their time together at Miranshah with fondness ("...Very sorry poor little Miranshah went west. It was a good place. I shall remember it with great pleasure...") and tells him conspiratorially that he has visited Nancy Astor to discuss her election campaign ("...Keep this dark. It might get us into trouble..."); he also gives news of his translation of the Odyssey on which he was working during their time at Miranshah ("...My poor old Greek book is a bit held up. This hut is rather a bear-garden, with windows & gramophones & what not: I did pretty well this week: finished another book, one 24th of the whole: so... I may get it done by this time next year..."), and boasts about his new Brough ("...I have a bike, but am too public a character to venture on it into the town... It's a noble bike. I got 94 out of it, on the way back from London. 94 is a decent speed..."); adding in a postscript: "The local rags are yapping about me", 2 pages, on lined paper, torn where formerly attached at the top left, weak at folds, a few unobtrusive stains, but overall in attractive condition, folio, "338171 A/c Shaw/ RAF Cattewater/ Plymouth", 1 April 1929

Footnotes

"THE LOCAL RAGS ARE YAPPING ABOUT ME": a fine letter by Lawrence, showing both his ambivalent attitude to fame and publicity but also – more unusually – a touching, almost wistful, empathy for family life and the loneliness of foreign postings: "I wish you could get back to England. Mrs Easton would like you in Plymouth, or failing that, in England somewhere. 1933 is too far off, curse it: five years makes so much difference when kids are growing up. At any rate it should comfort you to know that they're looking like a picture... In a fortnight or so I hope to go across again". An extract from this letter is published by Malcolm Brown, The Letters of T.E. Lawrence, 1988, pp.410-411.

Additional information

Bid now on these items

ADVERTISING POSTERfor 'The Suffragette' newspaper, [c.1913-1914]

ARCHITECTURE - STUART (JAMES) AND NICHOLAS REVETT The Antiquities of Athens, 4 vol. bound in 2, 1825-1830

ILLUMINATED ADDRESS – CLARA CODD Illuminated printed address signed by Emmeline Pankhurst, [1909]

ARMENIAN - HISTORY, THEOLOGY AND PRINTING. Group of books/a map in Armenian, c.1825-1901 (12)

MUSIC & RECORDINGS – ETHEL SMYTH Collection of printed music, song sheets and records, [c.1911-1912]

BANK NOTES - MANUFACTURING BRADBURY (HENRY) On the Security and Manufacture of Bank Notes, FIRST EDITION, Bradbury and Evans, 1856