T. E. Lawrence Correspondence – Page 483

To Hogarth 24.2.'27 1) Yes, Gen.Wright should have a gratis copy of the incomplete edition - those half-bound in cloth and morocco. There will be six of them available, I expect, when Pike has finished. If he has not sent you the surplus, then please ask him to send his copy to Gen... Wright. (Seaton Down, Seaton, Devon.) 2) Your copy, being specially bound, will be later than the ordinary distribution. I hope you will have received it before this. If not, then please send a line to Pike, and ask what is the cause of delay. It may be some easily arranged trifle. 3). I said nothing about delay in the Trust's ...., because before sending the abridged text to Cape I'd been twice through it, with no other end than to smell out the possibility of a libel action arising from it: and decided finally that every conceivable cause of personal irritation had disappeared: and further, it stands to reason that no one will take action against a second publication. He would have no case in law. Any action would have to be brought against the first & main offender - the book publication in England or U.S.A:- and this was entirely my act. Consequently your hesitation had no real ground - as you have realised. Upon seeing the very harmless colourless lifeless spine-less abortion which Revolt in the Desert will seem to every right-thinking man. 4). Doughty letters. Yes. There are about 20 more loose, with a lot of papers & clothes, in a kit-bag (a leather affair with a strap or two round it) not locked, but chained, on a rack of the top landing of Barton's office at 14 Barton St. Post-war letters, I think. My pre-war Doughty letters (I kept them all pre & post: about 50, the set: not very interesting..., any of them) were in a drawer of a chest of drawers in the house of Alderman ... Hitchins, somewhere up Woodstock Road in Oxford. I do not know if he still has the thing in his spare room or not. Use anything in them of any use to you. If you can find anything. A) The Tite lists are (intentionally) not complete. No body but myself knows how many copies of the Seven Pillars were sent out & to whom. Two hundred and thirty nine copies in all of the var-& to whom. Two hundred ... (A.S. ... Cronwell, New York) are still extant. ious editions (i.e. Oxford ... When the pike balance comes down, please avoid the risk of mix-ing them up with the special copy (containing one extra ... & extra plates) which Meynell is to post direct to ... for myself. I do not want it in this place: but I want you to hold it, till I come back or ask you to dispose of it. There will be 5 or 6 surplus copies, & these I'm going to hold on to, in case they have plus copies, & these to be sold for the highest possible price, & used to help pay off to be ... for the ... Loan to me. I do not expect there to be any such eventual straits:my finance was very cautiously contrived: but that's my life's motto, it's as well to run no risk whatever. Yours T.E.S. 341