Clearwater Books

T.E.LAWRENCE. A Brief Record of the Advance of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force under the Command of General Sir Edmund H.H.Allenby, G.C.B., G.C.M.G. July 1917 to October 1918. Compiled from Official Sources. Government Press and Survey of Egypt. Palestine News, Cairo 1919 [in fact December 1918]. The first edition, preceding the HMSO edition. 114pp + lvi plates of colour maps with descriptions to adjacent verso leaves. Portrait frontispiece of Allenby with his printed facsimile signature. Buff paper covers with a cloth spine. Covers lightly dust soiled. Endpapers and several preliminary and concluding leaves spotted and with some off-set browning to the front endpaper from a laid-in newspaper clipping. A very good copy. No dust wrapper, as issued. Includes two sections (Sherifian Co-operation in September and Story of the Arab Movement) compiled from Lawrence's official notes, unaccredited yet still his first published accounts of the Arab Campaign. Lawrence is also mentioned twice in the text. O’Brien (A011) notes that 16,000 copies were printed, yet this remains really quite uncommon. £200

T.E.LAWRENCE. Aufstand in der Wuste. Translated into German and introduced by Dagobert von Mikusch. With a preface by Bernard Shaw (taken from a contribution to The Spectator), and illustrated with four plates and a folding map. Paul List Verlag, Leipzig [1927]. The first German edition of Revolt in the Desert. Royal 8vo. Covers rather dusty and a little marked and bumped in places. Endpaper hinges cracked. Name of former owner to half-title. No jacket, as issued. O'Brien A116. £30

ROBERT VANSITTART. (T.E.Lawrence interest). The Singing Caravan. A Sufi Tale. With illustrations by William MacCance. The Gregynog Press, Newtown 1932. The revised edition, and the first with these MacCance illustrations, limited to 250 numbered copies hand-set by Idris and Idwal Jones and printed at the Gregynog Press on hand-made paper. 4to. 143pp. Full brown sheepskin, gilt lettered at spine and upper board. With a two-colour wood engraved frontispiece (offset a little to the adjacent title page), occasional illuminations and several vignettes in the text by MacCance, then controller of the Gregynog Press. Fore- and bottom edge untrimmed. Boards a little chafed at extremities and with half a dozen light superficial scores. A touch of spotting throughout and some off-set browning from the sheepskin to the margins of the front and rear endpapers. A very crisp copy of an uncommon Gregynog production, a book-length poem by Lord Vansittart, the second cousin of T.E.Lawrence and a work much admired by him. (Lawrence originally suggested this project to Gregynog, but declined an invitation to provide a preface. He was nevertheless extremely complimentary about the finished product, writing to MacCance in March 1933 upon receipt of his copy “My Caravan delights me. The print is small and neat and fine : paper and binding all right : and the decoration most fitting and restrained. The capital letters are quite new to me, in style and colour and most successful. Printing poetry is always difficult ... but you have kept it well in frame and harmonious. I call the whole book a very worthy performance. It is excellent stuff to read, too. I have liked it since it came out, and in this noble dress it reads better than ever. I hope you have sold them all”). £200

T.E.LAWRENCE. Seven Pillars of Wisdom. A Triumph. Jonathan Cape, London 1935. The limited issue of the first trade edition, number 256 of 750 numbered copies. 4to. 669pp. Buckram sides over quarter pigskin, gilt lettered at spine and with the gilt crossed swords motif to upper board. Top edge gilt, others untrimmed. Marbled endpapers. With a frontispiece, four multi-panel fold out maps, and fifty-three plates by Eric Kennington, John Rothenstein &c, including four colour plates with loose tissue protectors (which were excluded from the trade issue, as were the three facsimile pages showing a double-spread manuscript reproduction, a page of the Oxford 1922 text, and a page from the Subscriber’s text, abridged for Revolt in the Desert). Many pages uncut. Some rubbing and chafing to pigskin, buckram a little marked and lightly scored in places. Binding just a little tender at title page. A very good copy of an extremely uncommon and desirable production, lacking the plain paper dust wrapper and slipcase. O'Brien A041. £1,000  

T.E.LAWRENCE. John Gawsworth (under the name ‘G’). Annotations on some Minor Writings of “T.E.Lawrence”. Scholartis Press, London 1935. First edition – limited to 500 numbered copies (of which 450 were for sale). 28pp. With a previously unpublished portrait frontispiece by Frederick Carter entitled T.E.Shaw – Cecil Court, March 1934. Notes on twenty-three publications, plus extracts from thirty-eight letters. Brief prefatory note by ‘G’. Endpapers lightly browned and spotted and binding tender at pp. 14/15. A very bright copy in slightly grubby dust marked dust wrapper. O'Brien E077. £60

T.E.LAWRENCE. Hendrik Van Loon. Van Loon on the Air. Broadcasts Delivered by Hendrik Willem Van Loon from The Studio of the National Broadcasting Company, Radio City, New York. George G Harrep & Co Limited, London, Bombay & Sydney 1936. First Edition. A slightly dusty but otherwise good copy with excellent tight binding. Missing dust wrapper. Contains T.E.Lawrence’s obituary. £20

T.E.LAWRENCE. Crusader Castles. Complete in two volumes comprising The Thesis and The Letters. With forewords by A.W.Lawrence and Mrs [Sarah] Lawrence. The Golden Cockerel Press, London 1936. The first publication of Lawrence’s Oxford thesis (originally entitled The Influence of the Crusades on European Military Architecture to the end of the Twelfth Century). Limited to 1,000 numbered copies (this being #594) printed in Perpetua type on British mould-made paper and bound by Sangorski and Sutcliff into half morocco, gilt lettered at spines with five raised bands to each and cream cloth sides. 4to. Top edges gilt, other untrimmed. With over 150 reproductions of drawings, photographs and diagrams, but lacking the two folding maps which should be housed in a separate envelope at the rear. Cloth sides a little marked with just a touch of light tanning to extreme margins of the first four or five leaves of the first volume. Not a fine set, but really very good. O'Brien A118 & A189. £650

“A first typewritten text of the thesis served as a draft for a corrected version, also typewritten, which was bound with numbered illustrations and submitted to the examiners. The author then began to revise the rough copy again in pencil, apparently with a view to publication, altering the wording and writing comments in the margins. The title ‘Crusader Castles’ appears only in this version. After the examination (in which he was placed in the First Class), one of the judges of the thesis urged the University Press to publish it in book form, saying however that not one of the illustrations could be spared; the cost was considered prohibitive.” – from A.W.Lawrence’s foreword 

T.E.LAWRENCE. Selden Rodman. Lawrence: The Last Crusade. (A 'dramatic-narrative poem'). Viking Press, New York 1937. First edition (never published in the UK). 8vo. Covers rather marked and faded. No jacket. Name of former owner. O'Brien E116. £35

T.E.LAWRENCE. T.E.Lawrence to his Biographer Robert Graves [and] Liddell Hart. Information about himself, in the form of letters, notes, answers to questions and conversations. Edited with notes and critical commentaries by Robert Graves and B.H.Liddell Hart. Faber, London 1938. First edition, presented in two volumes and limited to 1000 numbered and signed copies (by Graves and Hart respectively), these two being #382 (500 copies of this print run were distributed in the UK, and the other 500 went to the US where they appeared a month earlier). 187pp & 233pp. Full buckram. Top edges gilt, others untrimmed. Each volume with a different portrait frontispiece. A little light browning to the recto of each colophon page and spines just a fraction sunned as is common, else both volumes in fine state, missing the unprinted acetate protectors but with the original cloth covered slipcase, just a little marked and fingered. O’Brien A210. £500

T.E.LAWRENCE. Men in Print. Essays in Literary Criticism. With an introduction by A.W.Lawrence. The Golden Cockerel Press [1940]. One of 500 copies. Bound in quarter blue Niger, lettered in gilt with five raised bands. Cream linen boards. Top edge gilt. Boards somewhat handled, grubby and a little stained at top edge. Spine sunned and a little rubbed at head, base and in several tiny areas in-between. Internally in fine state. A scarce item. Contains five essays by Lawrence, including reviews of works D.H.Lawrence, H.G.Wells and James Elroy Flecker, plus his noteworthy Criticism of Henry Williamson's Tarka the Otter, with some remarks on the style of Doughty's Arabia Deserta, the suggested charges from which were subsequently incorporated by Williamson into the text of the fourth edition of Tarka. O'Brien A229. £250

T.E.LAWRENCE. Lettres de T.E.Lawrence. A series of letters printed in the periodical Les Temps Modernes. No 32. Paris. May 1948. Card wrappers, slightly torn, chipped and with some light uneven tanning. Rather fragile and brittle, missing extreme tips of one or two top corners. O'Brien A207. £30

T.E.LAWRENCE. The Mint. Notes made in the RAF Depot 1922 and at cadet Collegee in 1925. Regrouped and copied in 1927 and 1928 at Karachi. Doubleday, New York 1955. The deluxe edition, limited to 1000 numbered copies (preceding the deluxe  UK edition). Small 4to. Dark blue covers with gilt lettering, triflingly rubbed at head of spine. A very good copy, lacking the slipcase. O'Brien A167. £85

A book with a complex publication history, Lawrence began making notes for it when he joined the RAF in 1922 and he was still making revisions in the last moths of his life. In 1936 the manuscript found its way to America and, in order to control publication a limited issue of 50 copies was produced - 10 of which were for sale priced at $500,000 each in order to prevent purchases. Following the death of an officer Lawrence describes unfavourably, a revised edition was published in 1955 in both a limited edition (2,000 copies in the UK and 1,000 in the US) and a trade issue -  all of these states having the objectionable words lifted from the text. A definitive unexpurgated edition did not appear until 1973. 

T.E.LAWRENCE. The Mint. A Day-book of the R.A.F. Depot between August and December 1922. With later notes by 352087 A/c Ross (i.e. T.E.Lawrence). Jonathan Cape, London 1955. First UK edition, of which 2,000 copies were printed (this being #1250). 4to. 206pp. Original publisher’s quarter blue morocco. Top edge gilt, others untrimmed. Handsome marbled endpapers. Many leaves uncut. Upper board lifting just a fraction. First dozen leaves creased yet this aside very crisp copy of a handsome production. No dust wrapper, as issued, but lacking the slipcase. Published posthumously and edited by Lawrence's brother, this issue precedes the slightly censored trade issue which appeared later the same year. O'Brien A172. £125

T.E.LAWRENCE. Richard Aldington. Lawrence of Arabia. A Biographical Enquiry. Collins, London, 1955. First edition. 8vo. 448pp. Buckram. With a portrait frontispiece, eleven photographs and three maps. A short crease to the corner of the first three leaves, but thereafter an exceptionally crisp and bright copy in dust wrapper, just a little rubbed at extremities with several tiny slivers of loss. Aldington's controversial biography of T.E.Lawrence caused a scandal upon publication, claiming as it did that Lawrence was both illegitimate and homosexual. The book subsequently came to be regarded as a scathing attack upon the Lawrence myth, one from which Aldington's own reputation never fully recovered. £20

T.E.LAWRENCE. R.P.Blackmur. The Lion and the Honeycomb. Essays. Methuen, London 1956.  The first English edition. Spine slightly faded. A nice, bright copy. No dust wrapper. Includes Blackmur's 1940 essay The Everlasting Effort: A Citation of T.E.Lawrence. O'Brien F0102.  £15

T.E.LAWRENCE (interest). Colonel R.Meinertzhagen. Middle East Diary 1917-1956. The Cresset Press, London 1959. First edition. 8vo. 376pp. Minor production fault creases to the head of a number of leaves. Tiny bump to the tips of two corners. A very good copy in price-clipped, lightly faded, tanned and edgeworn dust wrapper with one miniscule closed tear and one slightly longer jagged tear with a little accompanying creasing. Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen’s diary of his time in the Middle East, much of which was later determined to have been falsified. Includes nearly thirty index references to T.E.Lawrence. O'Brien F0722. £75

“Meinertzhagen knew no half measures. He was logical, an idealist of the deepest, and so possessed by his convictions that he was willing to harness evil to the chariot of good. He was a strategist, a geographer, and a silent laughing masterful man; who took as blithe a pleasure in deceiving his enemy (or his friend) by some unscrupulous jest, as in spattering the brains of a cornered mob of Germans one by one with his African knob-kerri. His instincts were abetted by an immensely powerful body and a savage brain” – T.E.Lawrence writing in Seven Pillars of Wisdom. 

T.E.LAWRENCE. Anthony Nutting. Lawrence of Arabia. The Man and the Motive. With illustrations.  Hollis & Carter, London 1961. First edition. 8vo. Covers a little marked in places. Quite a nice copy in slightly creased and chafed, price-clipped dust wrapper. O'BrienE232. £20

T.E.LAWRENCE. Letters to T.E.Lawrence. Edited and with a preface by A.W.Lawrence. Jonathan Cape, London 1962. First edition. Illustrated with holograph reproductions of correspondence from Churchill, Conrad, Augustus John, Kipling, Sassoon and G.B.Shaw. In fine state with nicked, chipped and a little faded dust wrapper. A collection of thirty-seven letters to Lawrence from a variety of correspondents including Blunden, Buchan, Coward, Day Lewis, Doughty, Forster, Garnett, Graves, Manning, Pound, Tomlinson, Wells, Yeats and others. O'Brien E251. £45

T.E.LAWRENCE. Donald Weeks. T.E.Lawrence. An hitherto unknown Biographical/ Bibliographical Note. Privately printed at the Tragara Press, Edinburgh 1983. First Edition, limited to 230 copies. 16pp. Somerville laid paper sewn into stiff card wrappers with title label. A detailed and scholarly analysis of TEL’s proof corrections to Wilfred Ewart's Scots Guard - the only known copy of any book corrected by Lawrence, involving over 200 corrections, all of which bar four were incorporated into the final book. Also details of Lawrence’s association with John Gawsworth's who masterminded the collaboration. In fine state. O'Brien E393. £30

T.E.LAWRENCE. Martin Booth. Dreaming of Samarkand. Hutchinson, London 1989. First edition. Covers very slightly bumped at some extremities. A near fine copy in dust wrapper. A novel with T.E.Lawrence and James Elroy Flecker as major protagonists. £15

T.E.LAWRENCE. Secret Despatches from Arabia and Other Writings. Edited and with an introduction by Malcolm Brown. Bellew Publishing, London 1991. A new edition, reprinting Lawrence’s Arab Bulletin contributions, and containing some material not included in the Golden Cockerel Press limited edition of 1939. With a new six-page introduction by the editor, who has also inscribed this copy and dated it the year after publication. 8vo. 279pp. Illustrated with fifteen photographs and several maps. A fine copy in virtually fine dust wrapper. £45

T.E.LAWRENCE. J.N.Lockman. Meinertzhagen’s Diary Ruse. False Entries on T.E.Lawrence. Cornerstone Publications Inc., Grand Rapids 1995. First edition. 8vo. 114pp. A tiny hint of spotting to top edge, else in fine state. No dust wrapper, as issued. A detailed study refuting the T.E.Lawrence-related entries in Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen’s Middle East Diary 1917-1956: claims long doubted (Jeremy Wilson called them “pure fantasy” in his 1989 biography) and here irrefutably rebuffed. £30

T.E.LAWRENCE. Correspondence with Bernard and Charlotte Shaw. 1922-1926. Volume 1. Edited by Jeremy and Nicole Wilson. Castle Hill Press, Hampshire 2002. First edition – one of 600 cloth-bound copies (out of a total edition of 702). Royal 8vo. 227pp. Top edge gilt. With a portrait frontispiece of Lawrence by Augustus John (given by T.E.L. to Charlotte Shaw in 1926 and subsequently donated to the National Portrait Gallery). Errata slip pasted to the base of the final contents leaf, as issued. A fine unread copy in fine dust wrapper. A hefty selection of over one hundred letters and diary extracts, much of it hitherto unprinted. The first of a planned three-volume set, but a fourth volume was issued in 2009. The original limitation was 702 sets but in the end only 475 of each volume were produced, with the sheets for the additional 227 copies remaining unbound. £125

T.E.LAWRENCE. Correspondence with Bernard and Charlotte Shaw. 1927. Volume II. Edited by Jeremy and Nicole Wilson. Castle Hill Press, Hampshire 2003. First edition – one of 600 cloth-bound copies (out of a total edition of 702). Royal 8vo. 238pp. Top edge gilt. With a tipped-in photographic frontispiece, one further tipped-in photograph and two manuscript reproductions. A fine unread copy in fine dust wrapper. A selection of sixty-six letters, much of it hitherto unprinted. The second of a planned three-volume set, but a fourth volume was issued in 2009. The original limitation was 702 sets but in the end only 475 of each volume were produced, with the sheets for the additional 227 copies remaining unbound. £125

T.E.LAWRENCE. Clare Sydney Smith. The Golden Reign. The Story of my Friendship with ‘Lawrence of Arabia’. With a foreword by Sarah Lawrence (T.E.L’s mother), and a new introduction by Malcolm Brown. Newly illustrated with vintage photographs. The Fleece Press, Upper Denby 2004. A new edition, with additional illustrations, limited to 500 copies. Landscape 4to. A very handsomely produced account of the period Lawrence spent at Mount Batten serving in the RAF under the command of the author’s husband. Includes fifty letters from Lawrence to the author. Four small areas of paper residue to front pastedown where a former owner bookplate was carefully removed, else in fine state if lacking the slipcase. Laid-in is a small publisher’ slip, a little creased, noting this as being one of the contributor’s copies. £135