h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Lawrence of Arabia - The Man, The Books, The Film - A2364806
Author: Shazz PRME(emeritus) - U48304

Another entry which was curtailed slightly for the 'Fire' series and possibly deserves to join the Edited Guide in its own right.

Cracking article!

Maybe mention that he spoke Arabic fluently?

Also, to expand on the final sentence in 'The Man' section - in the film it is suggested that he felt cheated when the Arabs were not given their own homeland, as was promised. Not sure if this accurately reflects fact, I've had the Seven Pillars for ages but never got round to reading it.

Maybe mention his other books? Correspondence with Churchill etc. And his translation of Homer's Odyssey.

You could also mention him presenting a romantic view of himself; dressed in full Arab ceremonial dress etc. Another reason why he's so well remembered was that he has been portrayed as an enigmatic warrior fighting in the desert, in stark contrast to the trenches of France.

I think this sence belongs under the sub-heading, 'The Man':

'Lawrence retired from the armed forces in 1935 and, shortly after, was killed in a motor bike accident2'.

Pehaps extend this by saying that the accident was near Blandford in Dorset.

As far as I recall, there is lots of Lawrence memorabilia around Blandford and Wimborne. (I may try to look out the info for you if you're interested. I've feeling his tomb is in Wareham or Wimborne.

Both excellent suggestions, thank you. I will see what extra information I can dig up.

I have expanded quite a bit on both 'The Man' and 'The Books' sections.

Let me know if it needs any further work.

shazz

Hi Shazz, the opening paragraph is there twice...

Oops... forgot to delete it when I pasted in the new stuff!

Sorted now.

shazz

Any more comments, corrections?

shazz

Shazz, IMDB lists the premier version as being 222 minutes long.

Another bit you could add is that Lawrence drew up plans, including a recently discovered map currently being exhibited at the Imperial War Museum, for how he thought the Middle East's borders should be drawn after the war. This included separate states for the Kurds, the Armenians and the Palestinians. His plans to divide the region were based on local concerns, rather than on the Imperial ambitions of the British and French governments.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4332702.stm

http://www.24hourmuseum.org.uk/nwh_gfx_en/ART30901.html

Thanks for the tip about the Premier... length of premier now amended.

Some recent news! Excellent. I have included a link to the story and map.



shazz

Hi Shazz, This is an interesting subject and an enigmatic figure.

One of the bits of trivia concerning TEL that I came across, was that when he came to the RAF recruiting office to enlist, he was initially greeted by a recruiting NCO who was suspicious of him. The NCO sent him away to get some ID and informed his officer that something was wrong. When TEL returned shortly after with obviously forged papers he was interviewed by the officer. That officer was Capt W E Johns, who was later to become well known as the author of the Biggles series of boys books.
There's more detail to that if you want to use it.

DK

Hi, Shazz!

About "7 Pillars of Wisdom"
"Lawrence wrote prolifically throughout his life. Seven Pillars of Wisdom was completed in 1926 but the detailed prints were so expensive and the production costs so high that a re-write was required, leading to the publication of an abridged version, Revolt in the Desert, at the end of the year. Seven Pillars of Wisdom was eventually published, still abridged, in 1935. The full version, comprising of 334,500 words wasn't issued until 1997 and is generally referred to as 'The Oxford text'."

I think just putting in a footnote to say that "it was available to private subscribers" is a bit misleading when that is normally counted as an actual edition. There are 3 versions available:
--The "Oxford Text" has 335,000 words, and at least 6 copies were privately printed in 1922, and circulated among Lawrence's friends, including GB Shaw, Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling, Robert Graves and EM Forster. This only became generally available in 1997.
--The Subscribers' Edition of 1926 and the 1935 edition of "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" published after Lawrence's death have the abridgement to 250,000 words.
--The 1927 edition of "Revolt in the Desert" is an abridgement to 130,000 words.

So, while the 1922 printing was only in private circulation, the 1926 edition was sold to subscribers, but then traded through booksellers like any other expensive edition, and is the first edition of the most widely known version. At the moment, a copy is selling through abebooks for £45,000. This is not just because it's rare, but because it has a lot of illustrations by artists such as Eric Kennington, William Roberts, Augustus John, William Nicholson, Paul Nash, and is beautifully produced. On the other hand, there are only 6 copies known of the 1922 Oxford text. While it is cheaply produced on poor paper, it is so valued for its rarity that one of the six copies sold at auction for £700,000 in 2001.

Apparently one reason Lawrence went to the trouble of getting the draft typeset in 1922 was that he had lost the first draft of the book by leaving it behind in a railway station in 1919, and had to write the whole thing out again.


Azara

Yes - I was aware of all that information, Azara, but I wasn't quite sure how to precis it down without over-burdening the entry.

Do you suggest including all that detail (obviously edited as I know exactly where you found the quote )

shazz

which quote? I got the figures for word length from Wikipedia; while I was inspired to comment by rereading Gekoski's book I certainly didn't quote him directly.

Anyway, I was assuming that you'd precis it down

"Lawrence wrote prolifically throughout his life. A draft of Seven Pillars of Wisdom was completed in 1922 and circulated among his friends. The text was abridged for the limited Subscribers' Edition of 1926, but the detailed prints were so expensive and the production costs so high that Lawrence made a substantial loss. To recover some of his costs, he reluctantly agreed to publish a cheap, more heavily abridged version, Revolt in the Desert, in 1927. The 1926 text of Seven Pillars of Wisdom was republished in a trade edition in 1935, while the full 1922 version of 334,500 words wasn't issued until 1997. This original version is usually known as 'The Oxford Text' as the draft was typeset by the Oxford Times."

That isn't drastically longer than your paragraph. Personally, I'd also add:
"Nowadays, since there are only six known copies, the flimsily-printed 1922 draft is extremely valuable, with one being sold at auction in 2001 for £700,000. The 170 copies of the Subscribers' Edition are admired for the quality of production, and for the illustrations by leading contemporary artists such as John Singer Sargent, Colin Gill, Augustus John, Gilbert Spencer and Paul Nash."


Azara

That's great, Azara, thanks

I thought that we may have been browsing around the same dedicated TE Lawrence site and didn't mean to cause any offence by suggesting that you'd quoted from there.

I'll incorporate this and the ref to WE Johns (chocks away!) now.

shazz

Both suggestions incorporated now.

shazz

for the changes!

There's one slip--you still have "A draft of Seven Pillars of Wisdom was completed in 1926" rather than 1922.

Aside:
The book that got me interested is one called "Tolkien's Gown and Other Stories of Great Authors and Rare Books" by Rick Gekoski. Stories of expensive books have a certain morbid fascination for me since I once gave away a moderately valuable first edition when donating unwanted books to my local library.


Azara

1926 changed to 1922

I had something similar only with old 78 records and a gramaphone player. My mother thought my collection was junk and gave it all away to a local white elephant stall. How I miss my old wind-up gramaphone still.

shazz

Excellent entry Shazz. I'm ashamed to say that I didn't know much about TE Lawrence until then..

I think you need to make more emphasis on his habit of self publicising and exaggeration.

It is often thought that a lot of the events that took place in the Seven Pillars of Wisdom were exaggerations or just out right lies.