LAWRENCE | Autograph letter signed, to Leeson, promising a copy of Seven Pillars of Wisdom, 30 December 1925

Property of a Distinguished Collector

LAWRENCE, T.E.

Autograph letter signed ("TES"), to B.E. Leeson

promising him a copy of Seven Pillars of Wisdom ("...I have your address hoarded up, for are you not to have a copy of my book upon Arabia (a book in which alas you & our trip up W. Hamdh do not appear) when it is finished...") and updating him on his life back in the RAF ("...Name of Shaw. No 338171. Rank A.C.2. Unit RAF Cadet College. Cranwell is in Lincolnshire. I'm not a Cadet, but one of the slaves. It is really very good to be in the RAF after all the storms and shipwreck..."), 1 page, 4to, [RAF Cranwell], 30 December 1925

A FRIENDLY LETTER TO A FELLOW AIRMAN AND VETERAN OF THE ARAB REVOLT. B.E. Leeson had joined 14 Squadron of the RFC in January 1917 as an Observer with the rank of Lieutenant. The squadron was then providing aerial support to Arab and British forces from Rabigh, north of Mecca in the Hejaz, and later from Wejh. Leeson's personal connection with Lawrence came in late April, when the two men had been part of a small group who spent a week exploring a remote valley, Wadi Hamdh, to recover a crashed B.E.2c biplane. The temperature was 118° in the shade, the country was waterless, and their car constantly had to be cut free of thick dry brushwood. Leeson was subsequently invalided out of Arabia. In this letter Lawrence congratulates him on the birth of a daughter.

This letter is previously unpublished.

PROVENANCE:

Phillips, 14 March 1996, lot 396