Books

First and sole edition, number 21 of 24 copies only, one of 12 printed on Barcham Green "Medway" Paper. Lawrence's letter, in part a meditation on the glories of Chartres cathedral, is a beautiful production, privately printed for Lawrence's mother. This copy with an excellent provenance, being from the library of socialite Audrey Pleydell-Bouverie, a friend of Viscount Carlow, founder of the Corvinus Press. In the summers of 1907 and 1908 Lawrence's parents "provided the wherewithal for him to undertake extended bicycle tours of France in search of castles which he measured and photographed" (ODNB). Lawrence composed this rhapsodic response to Chartres on 28 August 1908. "Mrs Lawrence was delighted with it, supposing that it implied her son's eternal salvation. After Lawrence's death, Mack tells us that Lord Carlow chose to print it privately in an 'elaborate edition'. David Garnett described it as 'the most beautiful and emotional of his early letters'" (Allen, p. 26). Provenance: although unmarked as such, from the library at Julians Park, Hertfordshire, the home of society hostess Audrey Pleydell-Bouverie (1902-1968), who numbered Cecil Beaton, Coco Chanel, Salvador Dali and Fred and Adele Astaire among her friends; she bought Julians Park in 1940 and set about redesigning the interior and creating an impressive library. Her aristocratic acquaintances included George Lionel Seymour Dawson-Damer, Viscount Carlow, who established the Corvinus Press in early 1936 and was a keen book collector and typographer. Of the edition of 24, five copies are in institutional libraries (British Library, Oxford, Eton, Yale, and Harvard); and auction records show that just 10 have been offered for sale (two of these more than once). READ MORE Quarto. Original pale khaki cloth spine, pale brown flecked paper boards, fore and lower edges untrimmed, top edge gilt. 3 collotype plates of architectural details from Chartres cathedral, from photographs by Lawrence (with loose tissue guards); initial letter printed in red. Minor rubbing to spine ends and tips, offsetting from tissue guard to title page and palely to the plates. An excellent copy. O'Brien A192; M. D. Allen, The Medievalism of Lawrence of Arabia, 1991; Edward Garnett, ed., The Letters of T. E. Lawrence, 1938.