T. E. Lawrence Correspondence – Page 590

Dear Kennington, At a meeting last Sunday Hogarth, Dawney, Curtis, and I decided to produce 100 copies of the Seven Pillars, at 30 guineas a copy, if so many subscribers can be found. I am to be solely responsible, (that the law of libel, civil or criminal, may fall blunted on my geminated status as a private soldier), will pay all bills, and sign all papers and copies. Hogarth will help edit my proofs: you, edit my pictures (I hope). Production to start as soon as £200 has been subscribed: ("starting" means sending four Arab pastels to W. & G.). Intending subscribers are to write to me (under any name, to Clouds' Hill Moreton Dorset for details and conditions. I'll reply personally to each. If you know any unco' rich please try and pillage them. I estimate the job might take a year at the shortest, two at the longest. As for printer, make advisable Aforesaid copyright act and law of libel will necessitate my being a nominal partner in the printing firm. To retire as soon as job is completed. I want it done monotype, in eleven point or fourteen point, of a type approximating to O.P.Caslon. unleaded: with side-headings in side margin: no top-heading, lines not long, but print-panel taller than usual in quartos. The size of the page you know (it's the Chalib proof, anyway. I forget the dimensions). Paper to be a thin decent rag brand, hand-made or machine-made of similar quality. Not perfectly bleached: - a tone of yellow or mud in it. Book will run between 300,000 and 330,000 words: preferably the lesser number. Matter will be sent in in sheets of the book you have, hand-corrected (scissors and paste): so it will be a very legible M.S. to set up from. Will you ask your printer how this proposition appeals to him ... what sample experience he credentials and margins he would set up: how long he would be before he could start the job: how many words per week he would be prepared to set up: how many sheets he would be prepared to hold in type, what he would charge per thousand words? (I can't say per folio, because we haven't yet set up a dummy page). I would interfere with the sample pages a good deal, with the accepted forms: very little. Author's corrections almost nil. Matter sent in regularly. I've printed enough to have a conscience and regard for type-matter. Yours T.E.