![LAWRENCE, T.E. An Essay on Flecker, [London]: The Corvinus Press, 1937. 4°, printed on rectos only, original white buckram gilt by W.H. Smith, lettered in gilt on the upper cover (slight discoloration to spine and outer areas of boards), t.e.g., others uncut. Provenance: sale, Sotheby's London, 21 July 1992, lot 156. FIRST EDITION. LIMITED TO 32 COPIES, THIS NUMBER 11 OF 26. Clements p.30; Nash and Flavell 15; O'Brien A198.](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2001/CSK/2001_CSK_09066_0017_000(024111).jpg?w=1)
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LAWRENCE, T.E. An Essay on Flecker, [London]: The Corvinus Press, 1937. 4°, printed on rectos only, original white buckram gilt by W.H. Smith, lettered in gilt on the upper cover (slight discoloration to spine and outer areas of boards), t.e.g., others uncut. Provenance: sale, Sotheby's London, 21 July 1992, lot 156. FIRST EDITION. LIMITED TO 32 COPIES, THIS NUMBER 11 OF 26. Clements p.30; Nash and Flavell 15; O'Brien A198.
'Significant as the first edition of one of Lawrence's important minor works' (Nash and Flavell). The poet James Elroy Flecker (1884-1915) was the author of The Golden Journey to Samarkand and Hassan, and British Vice-Consul in Beirut, where Lawrence befriended him in the pre-war years, sharing interests in the East, antiquity, languages, and literature. The Essay describes Flecker during that period thus: 'he was wrapped up in poetics, making a wide, exact, skillful study of how other men had written. He left untouched none of the sources of European verse. His education had given him scholarship to master Ancient Greece and Rome. His profession had taught him some classical Arabic, some Turkish. His practice made him acquainted with modern Greek. French was a daily language to him: and his inherited Jewish aptitude for languages made it not arduous to keep abreast of Spanish, Italian, Portuguese. Only Russian, I think, remained deliberately strange. It was too northy for this Mediterranean semite' (ff.8-9). Written in 1925 for publication in a journal, the Essay was first issued in this edition by Viscount Carlow, who noted in one of his copies that, 'This book was printed to cover the copyright of certain documents that were stolen. No copies are in general circulation' (Nash and Flavell). 6 of the 32 copies are in institutional collections (cf. Nash and Flavell).
'Significant as the first edition of one of Lawrence's important minor works' (Nash and Flavell). The poet James Elroy Flecker (1884-1915) was the author of The Golden Journey to Samarkand and Hassan, and British Vice-Consul in Beirut, where Lawrence befriended him in the pre-war years, sharing interests in the East, antiquity, languages, and literature. The Essay describes Flecker during that period thus: 'he was wrapped up in poetics, making a wide, exact, skillful study of how other men had written. He left untouched none of the sources of European verse. His education had given him scholarship to master Ancient Greece and Rome. His profession had taught him some classical Arabic, some Turkish. His practice made him acquainted with modern Greek. French was a daily language to him: and his inherited Jewish aptitude for languages made it not arduous to keep abreast of Spanish, Italian, Portuguese. Only Russian, I think, remained deliberately strange. It was too northy for this Mediterranean semite' (ff.8-9). Written in 1925 for publication in a journal, the Essay was first issued in this edition by Viscount Carlow, who noted in one of his copies that, 'This book was printed to cover the copyright of certain documents that were stolen. No copies are in general circulation' (Nash and Flavell). 6 of the 32 copies are in institutional collections (cf. Nash and Flavell).
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