![LAWRENCE, Thomas Edward (1888-1935). Eight Letters, edited by Harley Granville-Barker. [London]: 'Privately printed' [by the Westminster Press for H. Granville-Barker], 1939.](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2006/CKS/2006_CKS_07275_0239_000(010417).jpg?w=1)
Details
LAWRENCE, Thomas Edward (1888-1935). Eight Letters, edited by Harley Granville-Barker. [London]: 'Privately printed' [by the Westminster Press for H. Granville-Barker], 1939.
8° (170 x 114mm). Original grey printed wrappers, yapp edges (lightly creased and marked, edges slightly frayed). Provenance: Colonel Robert ('Robin') Vere Buxton (1883-1953, printed bookplate with inserted manuscript name 'R.V. BUXTON').
FIRST AND ONLY EDITION, LIMITED TO 50 COPIES. THE BUXTON COPY. Eight Letters reprints a series of letters from Lawrence to the theatre director and playwright Granville-Barker (1877-1946), written between 1923 and 1932, of which only the second had previously been published. Granville-Barker was a subscriber to Seven Pillars of Wisdom and 5 of the letters contain references to the work, including a request that Granville-Barker reads a copy of the Oxford edition in the first letter: 'The print is awful (very small, and squalid, and dazing in the eyes), the punctuation nil, the style priggish, the sense hysterical. But it is easy to skip, and after all I don't ask people to read it, only to try'. Eight Letters was not for sale, and copies were given as gifts; this copy is from the library of R.V. Buxton, who was Temporary Lieutenant-Colonel of the 2nd Battalion, Imperial Camel Corps and had fought with Lawrence during the Desert Campaign. After the war, Buxton became Lawrence's bank manager and assisted with the financing of Seven Pillars of Wisdom, playing an important role in the realisation of the project, as Lawrence recalled when he inscribed Buxton's copy: 'R.V.B.'s own copy, which he specially deserves, having gone to war and helped do the show, and then having gone to banking and financed all the history of the show' (cf. The Spiro Family Collection, part II, Christie's New York, 26 February 2004, lot 99). Nash and Flavell, Appendix II, pp. 172-174; O'Brien A219.
8° (170 x 114mm). Original grey printed wrappers, yapp edges (lightly creased and marked, edges slightly frayed). Provenance: Colonel Robert ('Robin') Vere Buxton (1883-1953, printed bookplate with inserted manuscript name 'R.V. BUXTON').
FIRST AND ONLY EDITION, LIMITED TO 50 COPIES. THE BUXTON COPY. Eight Letters reprints a series of letters from Lawrence to the theatre director and playwright Granville-Barker (1877-1946), written between 1923 and 1932, of which only the second had previously been published. Granville-Barker was a subscriber to Seven Pillars of Wisdom and 5 of the letters contain references to the work, including a request that Granville-Barker reads a copy of the Oxford edition in the first letter: 'The print is awful (very small, and squalid, and dazing in the eyes), the punctuation nil, the style priggish, the sense hysterical. But it is easy to skip, and after all I don't ask people to read it, only to try'. Eight Letters was not for sale, and copies were given as gifts; this copy is from the library of R.V. Buxton, who was Temporary Lieutenant-Colonel of the 2nd Battalion, Imperial Camel Corps and had fought with Lawrence during the Desert Campaign. After the war, Buxton became Lawrence's bank manager and assisted with the financing of Seven Pillars of Wisdom, playing an important role in the realisation of the project, as Lawrence recalled when he inscribed Buxton's copy: 'R.V.B.'s own copy, which he specially deserves, having gone to war and helped do the show, and then having gone to banking and financed all the history of the show' (cf. The Spiro Family Collection, part II, Christie's New York, 26 February 2004, lot 99). Nash and Flavell, Appendix II, pp. 172-174; O'Brien A219.
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