Seven Pillars of Wisdom, an out-of-series set of the limited parallel text edition featuring both the 1922 "Oxford" and 1926 "Subscribers" texts, in the publisher's quarter Morocco bindings and publisher's slipcase T. E. Lawrence, edited by Jeremy Wilson Other Fine Bindings,Other Non-Fiction

This is one of a precious few limited sets of the Parallel Text edition of the 1922 "Oxford' and 1926 "Subscribers" versions of Seven Pillars of Wisdom. This is unequivocally the most textually comprehensive published edition of T. E. Lawrence s magnum opus, featuring 1,000 dual-column pages in two large volumes. It was painstakingly prepared and published by Jeremy Wilson (1944-2017), Lawrence s official biographer and co-founder of Castle Hill Press. Per the publisher's limitation statement, the edition was limited to 50 sets, of which sets numbered 1-37 were bound in quarter goatskin and sets numbered i-xiii were "reserved". The 37 sets are bound in the publisher s quarter brown Morocco goatskin with brown buckram sides, the contents bound with brown endpapers, brown top edge stain, and silk head and tail bands. The two volumes are housed in the publisher s stout, unadorned brown buckram slipcase.We have now handled five of these sets, one of which was marked "hors séries" in Jeremy Wilson's characteristic red ink in lieu of a limitation number - the only set thus marked of which we are aware. The set on offer here is the only of which we are aware with an entirely blank limitation. Jeremy s widow and partner in Castle Hill Press, Nicole Wilson, kindly consulted her records for us and confirmed for us that, to her knowledge, this is the only set thus. Seven Pillars is the story of Thomas Edward Lawrence's (1888-1935) remarkable odyssey as instigator, organizer, hero, and tragic figure of the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire during the First World War, which he began as an eccentric junior intelligence officer and ended as "Lawrence of Arabia." This time defined Lawrence with indelible experience and celebrity, which he spent the rest of his short life struggling to reconcile and reject, to recount and repress. Lawrence famously resisted publication of Seven Pillars during his lifetime. When Lawrence died in 1935 following a motorcycle crash, his magnum opus was rushed into print in the only version readily available - the 1926 "Subscribers" abridgement. Few realize that the celebrated text released to the world as "Complete and Unabridged" in 1935 is, in fact, a significantly abridged version. Even more remarkable, the full 1922 "Oxford Text" - a third longer was not published until 1997. Jeremy Wilson took this text from the manuscript in the Bodleian Library and T. E. Lawrence's annotated copy of the 1922 Oxford Times printing. When preparing the limited editions of the Oxford Text, Wilson s Castle Hill Press also undertook the painstaking, mammoth task of creating this parallel text two large volumes containing complete texts of the 1922 and 1926 versions, typeset side-by-side in double columns, aligning the beginning of each sentence that exists in both texts so that readers can see at a glance exactly what was omitted and what was revised, illuminating the significant differences in style and content between the two texts. Beyond the subjective questions of literature, in terms of both autobiography and history, "the 1922 text is, without question, superior to that of 1926. In the abridgement process, Lawrence cut out numerous personal reflections, some of which were important The historical record, likewise often fell victim to abridgement because of the cuts, [the narrative] does not always account for Lawrence s time or seem to square with independent records. Worse still, the frustrations and abandoned plans of 1917-18 were largely suppressed in the 1926 text " This parallel text is the only available means for readily distinguishing the significant differences between the two texts of one of the most significant works of twentieth century literature. First, limited, numbered, and signed edition.