Details
LAWRENCE, Thomas Edward (1888-1935). Revolt in the Desert--[Publisher's Representative's Prospectus]. Revolt in the Desert. London: Jonathan Cape, 1927. 4° (229 x 160mm). Title printed in red and black. Collotype frontispiece and 15 collotype plates. (A few light spots or marks.) Original brown buckram, top edge brown, others uncut, unopened (edges rubbed, marked). Provenance: contemporary manuscript notes on upper pastedown describing size, binding, illustration, and costs of limited and trade editions. O'Brien A102c. [With, loosely inserted:]
[Incipit:] 'Colonel Lawrence's long-awaited book Revolt in the Desert ... Sherratt and Hughes 34 Cross Street, Manchester'. Prospectus/order form printed on a bifolium (232 x 159mm). (Lightly spotted, edges frayed and marked). Cf. O'Brien A102a.
THE RARE REPRESENTATIVES' SAMPLE WITH A VARIANT PROSPECTUS UNRECORDED BY O'BRIEN. The expense incurred by Lawrence for the printing and binding of Seven Pillars of Wisdom was some £13,000 (against an initial estimate of £3,000), and he decided to publish an abridgement to defray this debt: taking a set of proofs of the Subscribers' edition, he excised sections of the text with a brush and purple ink and amended it to produce a shorter version. This was published as Revolt in the Desert and enjoyed great commercial success, selling more than 90,000 copies in 1927 and enabling Lawrence to clear his debt, at which point he exercised his contractual right to halt publication of the work. This representatives' sample comprises the text of chapters 1-4 together with all 16 of the plates present in the trade issue; it is a rare piece, and O'Brien could only trace the Bradfer-Lawrence copy (which is also the only copy we can trace at auction since 1975), which was inscribed 'First proofs of 1st section to be pulled up from samples. Six only done'. The prospectus/order form is a variant of O'Brien A102a, presumably produced for Sherratt and Hughes, with their name and address on the upper panel (in place of Cape's) and the order form on the final page. (2)
[Incipit:] 'Colonel Lawrence's long-awaited book Revolt in the Desert ... Sherratt and Hughes 34 Cross Street, Manchester'. Prospectus/order form printed on a bifolium (232 x 159mm). (Lightly spotted, edges frayed and marked). Cf. O'Brien A102a.
THE RARE REPRESENTATIVES' SAMPLE WITH A VARIANT PROSPECTUS UNRECORDED BY O'BRIEN. The expense incurred by Lawrence for the printing and binding of Seven Pillars of Wisdom was some £13,000 (against an initial estimate of £3,000), and he decided to publish an abridgement to defray this debt: taking a set of proofs of the Subscribers' edition, he excised sections of the text with a brush and purple ink and amended it to produce a shorter version. This was published as Revolt in the Desert and enjoyed great commercial success, selling more than 90,000 copies in 1927 and enabling Lawrence to clear his debt, at which point he exercised his contractual right to halt publication of the work. This representatives' sample comprises the text of chapters 1-4 together with all 16 of the plates present in the trade issue; it is a rare piece, and O'Brien could only trace the Bradfer-Lawrence copy (which is also the only copy we can trace at auction since 1975), which was inscribed 'First proofs of 1st section to be pulled up from samples. Six only done'. The prospectus/order form is a variant of O'Brien A102a, presumably produced for Sherratt and Hughes, with their name and address on the upper panel (in place of Cape's) and the order form on the final page. (2)
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