T. E. Lawrence Correspondence – Page 489

To Hogarth For All Souls better the last incomplete than the U.S.A. version, perhaps. There are two variant passages in the latter, one disagreeable to Storri. Yours of May 3 The "incomplete" from Nice rather alarms me. At Nice the only subscriber was Cine Studio Nice. A.K. France He was a subscriber at 30 guineas & should have had a "complete" copy. He was put down for a complete in Fido's list. Will you write and ask him what happened? He may have been sent two: or may think that "the first to arrive" was the whole. 3(a) I don't think I can afford Wingste a copy. He felt himself too poor to subscribe, & I didn't feel myself indebted enough to him to give him one. I suggest you offer him one on loan, to read, if he wants it. (b) I returned Herbert Samuel his subscription, or tore up the cheque, I forget which, telling him in a letter that I wasn't as yet at home in that field. You know it: it is thoroughly filth and the bloodier parts of my yarn would make him sick. Up to date he has no proper grounds for judging me till: I did my best for him and his country when I was in the old smut side: like to try & keep his respect. Will you try and explain to him that his merits (bar him, deleted) barred him as a subscriber, and saved him an ... baigner d'ici? 4. Storrs' copy: found: excellent: 5. As you say, the price of piracy must be getting too high for a most publishers' nerves. Doran can't a well reprint the Oxford work, I reckon. There are five of them still, all bound copies (1) D.O.H. (2) Mrs G.D.S. (3) Alan D. (4) E.H.Forster (5) ... and the M.S. is in Bosliskin, where Cowley keeps a proprietary eye on it. So that's ssift. We can of course pirate the Cranwell text, which has been set up & published by his, & my editors. I could presumably sue him for damages: but also couldn't (financial reasons: which also pre- clude my asking ELIOT to look after my interests. You con't realize that I get 10 quid: a year, and that most of that stands itself as soon as I get it. When I heard of an attempted piracy in U'S'A I wired Savage, to sxtend to it: and it took me three weeks to repay the borrowed cost of my cable! No more! If Doran wants my plain life, send him to Robert Graves, who'd be glad to earn a fee. I don't suppose that you or Buchan would