LAWRENCE, T.E. | An Essay on Flecker, 1937, New York, 1/56 printed to protect copyright

From the Library of Alan Milne

LAWRENCE, T.E.

AN ESSAY ON FLECKER. NEW YORK: DOUBLEDAY DORAN & CO INC, 1937

8vo, ONE OF 56 COPIES PRINTED TO SECURE AMERICAN COPYRIGHT (but see note below), "Utopian" watermarked paper, original wrappers, stapled as issued, minor browning and a touch of spotting to text and wrappers

THE RARE AMERICAN COPYRIGHT EDITION.

Lawrence never properly completed this essay on the poet and Middle Eastern traveller Flecker (1884-1915), whom he met in Beirut (where Flecker was British Vice-Consul) before the First World War. He had started the essay in 1925 with the aim of periodical publication. It was first published from the surviving draft manuscript by the Corvinus Press in a limited edition, also in 1937. This American edition was organised by the author's brother A.W. Lawrence to secure copyright. In 1940 A. W. Lawrence published an edited text in Men in Print; another version, edited with close attention to the original manuscript, was published more recently by Jeremy Wilson on the T.E. Lawrence Studies website (see http://www.telstudies.org/writings/works/articles_essays/1925_essay_on_flecker.shtml )

Lawrence and Flecker clearly developed a close rapport, sharing interests in the East, antiquity, languages, and literature. Flecker, who would probably have gone on to become one of the major poetic talents of the age had he not died tragically young from tuberculosis, probably introduced Lawrence to poetry. He produced a copious amount of poetry in a short life, and his verse gained wide appeal. Lines from "The Pilgrims' Song" from Hasan are inscribed on the clocktower of the British SAS headquarters in Hereford:

We are the Pilgrims, master; we shall go

Always a little further; it may be

Beyond that last blue mountain barred with snow

Across that angry or that glimmering sea.

Delius created a musical setting of the same verse, and at various moments it has been quoted by, among others, Agatha Christie, Anthony Powell, Saki, Jorge Luis Borges, Nevil Shute, and even Diana Rigg in the James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969).

LITERATURE:

O'Brien A199 ("56 copies were printed to secure American copyright. In a letter dated 29 January 1938 A.W. Lawrence states that he requested 60 copies and thinks that 70 copies were printed")

To view Shipping Calculator, please click here