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.

LAWRENCE (T.E.) Seven Pillars of Wisdom, a triumph, SUBSCRIBERS' EDITION, ONE OF 170 COMPLETE COPIES, WARWICK JAMES'S COPY, [Privately Printed] for the Author by Manning Pike and H. J. Hodgson, 1926 image 1
LAWRENCE (T.E.) Seven Pillars of Wisdom, a triumph, SUBSCRIBERS' EDITION, ONE OF 170 COMPLETE COPIES, WARWICK JAMES'S COPY, [Privately Printed] for the Author by Manning Pike and H. J. Hodgson, 1926 image 2
LAWRENCE (T.E.) Seven Pillars of Wisdom, a triumph, SUBSCRIBERS' EDITION, ONE OF 170 COMPLETE COPIES, WARWICK JAMES'S COPY, [Privately Printed] for the Author by Manning Pike and H. J. Hodgson, 1926 image 3
Lot 281

LAWRENCE (T.E.)
Seven Pillars of Wisdom, a triumph, SUBSCRIBERS' EDITION, ONE OF 170 COMPLETE COPIES, WARWICK JAMES'S COPY, [Privately Printed] for the Author by Manning Pike and H. J. Hodgson, 1926

24 June 2015, 11:00 BST
London, Knightsbridge

Sold for £35,000 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

Ask about this lot

LAWRENCE (T.E.)

Seven Pillars of Wisdom, a triumph, SUBSCRIBERS' EDITION, ONE OF 170 COMPLETE COPIES, WARWICK JAMES'S COPY, printed in red and black, colour frontispiece portrait of Feisal by Augustus John and 65 plates (many coloured or tinted, 4 double-page) by Eric Kennington, William Roberts, Augustus John, William Nicholson, Paul Nash and others, 4 folding colour maps, 58 illustrations in text (one colour) by Roberts, Nash, Kennington, Blair Hughes-Stanton, Gertrude Hermes and others, initials by Edward Wadsworth, illustrated endpapers by Kennington, INSCRIBED BY LAWRENCE "Complete copy. i.xii.26 TES" on list of illustrations, and with 'Roberts' amended in ink to 'K[ennington]' as usual, with the four-page 'Some Notes on the Writing of the Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T.E. Shaw' loosely inserted , fine in original green panelled morocco gilt by Sangorski & Sutcliffe (signed on front turn-in), sides with triple gilt and blind rule borders, lettered 'The Seven Pillars' in gilt, gilt panelled spine in six compartments with raised bands, also lettered in gilt, g.e., extremities slightly rubbed, preserved in the original cardboard posting box addressed in ink to "Warwick James/ 2 Park Crescent/ W1", and with printed number label ("161") [Clements p.49, stating that "only about 100 copies were produced at 30 guineas each"; O'Brien A040], 4to (251 x 187mm.), [Privately Printed] for the Author by Manning Pike and H. J. Hodgson, 1926

Footnotes

LAWRENCE'S DENTIST'S COPY OF THE 1926 CRANWELL EDITION OF SEVEN PILLARS, ONE OF THE 170 COMPLETE COPIES.

It had been Lawrence's intention that every copy be unique in some way, and so he used six different binders in addition to Sangorski and Sutcliffe. In common with most of the complete copies, Warwick's has page XV mis-paginated as VIII, and Kennington's coloured landscape tail-piece ('False Quiet') is present at end of page XVIII. The 'Prickly Pear' plate is included, but not the two Paul Nash line drawings called for on pages 92 ('The prophet's tomb') and 208 ('A garden'), or the Blair Hughes-Stanton wood-engraving that in some copies illustrated the dedicatory poem.

Provenance: William Warwick James (1874-1965), a dental surgeon who lived and ran a large practice at 2-3 Park Crescent, London WC1. He was Lawrence's dentist and friend from about 1922, at a time when Lawrence's teeth were notoriously bad. "In 1922, six teeth were missing and two were defective. Some time thereafter, a prominent London dentist repaired the damage with gold teeth and fillings that Graves considered vulgar. Lawrence was pleased with them, asking his mother to tell the dentist 'that his artificial masterpiece, my mouth, still stands superbly. It cracks nuts'" (Harold Orlans, T.E. Lawrence: Biography of a Broken Hero, 2002 p.115). James also came to know A.W. and Mrs Lawrence, and contributed the chapter on Lawrence's collection of records, 'Music - Gramophone records at Clouds Hill', to TE Lawrence by his Friends, 1937 (see lot 283).

Additional information

Bid now on these items

A Presentation Copy of Kennedy's First Book to Spencer Tracy. Kennedy, John F. 1917-1963. Why England Slept. New York: Wilfred Funk, Inc., 1940.

Signed to Spencer Tracy 1952 Hemingway, Ernest. 1899-1961. The Old Man and the Sea, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1952.

CORNELIUS, MATTHEWS, editor. 1817-1889. The Enchanted Moccasins and Other Legends of the American Indians.

CALEPINO, AMBROGIO. 1435-1511. [Dictionarium.] Calepinus Ad librum. Mos est putidas.... Venice: Peter Liechtenstein, January 3, 1509.

HEARN, LAFCADIO. 1850-1904. [Japanese Fairy Tales.] Philadelphia: Macrae-Smith, [But Tokyo: T. Hasegawa,] [c.1931].

HEMINGWAY, ERNEST. 1899-1961. PUTNAM, SAMUEL, translator. Kiki's Memoirs. Paris: Sign of the Black Manikin, 1930.