Mansfield, Edgar--Lawrence, T.E.

4to, first trade edition, 54 plates, 4 folding maps, full native dyed yellow morocco gilt signed Edgar Mansfield (1951), covers tooled with outline of Lawrence in burnous and the tracks of his journeys, the upper cover in gilt, on the lower cover a scaled-down design in blind, spine lettered in gilt and blind, beige paper endleaves, top edge gilt, fitted case  

Exhibited: The art of the book William Morris and after 1892-1977. Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 1978, no. 165

Modern British Bookbindings pp. 18-19; Modern Design in Bookbinding pp. 7-13

Edgar Mansfield (1907-1996) was one of the most influential English binders of the twentieth century, looking at a binding as a piece of sculptural design as opposed to a technical piece. He was born in New Zealand, later coming to England where he studied at the Central School of Arts and Crafts under William Matthews. He was appointed to lecture at the London College of Printing from 1948-1964 until his retirement, where he taught many of the most important binders working in the second half of the twentieth-century.  He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 1934 and in 1955 formed the Guild of Contemporary Binders of which he was President until its re-emergence as the Designer Bookbinders in 1968, whereupon he was made an Honorary Fellow. He was awarded an OBE in 1979 and was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Sculptors in 1980.

This was the first of the T.E. Lawrence bindings commissioned by Colonel Bradfer-Lawrence.