T. E. Lawrence Correspondence – Page 542

LH 9/13/4-2 238171 ACB Shaw Room 2 ERB B.A.P. Drigh Road India Karachi 27 - V - 27 Dear Isham Your letter of April 19 came to me quickly: I wonder who forwarded it! Since December last year I've been in India, where I'm due to serve for five years, say till the winter of 1931. After that England, I hope. This East feeds me up. I hate the sights and sounds of it, and resent the further exile from London, which is the most habitable spot of the globe. Fifth Avenue must be a bad shock after St. James'! I hadn't heard you were married. Please commend me to Mrs. Isham, if your judgement approves the idea. I'd like to meet you again; but the physical difficulties seem distinct. The R.A.F holds me till 1935, and after that I'll have to find a job in England somewhere. You ask about my book. I produced a few copies of the com- plete thing for people I know, at £80 a copy; and recently pub- lished 40% of it in a public edition called "Revolt in the Desert," to pay for the deficit on the private edition; which did not go off very well. I'd have been glad of your subscription two years ago. I wonder what address Storrs gave you. I was then at Cran- well in Lincolnshire. In the end I gave away the odd sixty copies of the private edition, for which subscribers didn't appear. That was the cause of the deficits. Since the little book came out the value of the private one has risen to nearly £300. I was sure it would: but it is a year or two to late to help me. However the little thing has sold well, they say, and will pay off my debt. You