T.E. Lawrence

A first edition, first printing of The Seven Pillars Of Wisdom, signed and inscribed by E.M. Forster.

• T.E. Lawrence (English).
• London: Cape, 1935.
• Presentation copy from Lawrence’s great friend, the writer and one of the very few early readers of Seven Pillars Of Wisdom, E.M. Forster: ‘T. H. M from E. M. F in memory of Clouds Hill, July 1935.’
• In supplied dust wrapper.

This work was published on July 30th, 1935, two months after the death of T. E. Lawrence, and E.M. Forster has inscribed it to their mutual friend ‘T.H.M’ either on, or the day after, publication day and this was followed by Forster’s review of this first trade edition which appeared in The Listener magazine on July 31st 1935. The simple, humble inscription in this copy, ‘T. H. M from E. M. F in memory of Clouds Hill, July 1935’ can be interpreted with much greater depth. Lawrence had purchased his Clouds Hill home whilst stationed at the nearby Bovington Camp. The recipient is Lance Corporal Thomas Henderson Middleton, who served with Lawrence in the Tank Corps, whom Forster would have met during one of his stays at Clouds Hill.

Lawrence remembers (in a letter to Bernard and Charlotte Shaw) a group of people in the cottage at one time with Middleton as fighting on the big leather sofa at Clouds Hill with Pat Knowles. Forster’s own relationship with Middleton was mentioned in a letter dated 10 December 1925 from Lawrence to E. Palmer: “I went down to Cambridge last Sunday, and there E. M. F. sat, large as life. We talked about you and Middleton, and the world generally. M. writes more letters to him than you do. Then M. always was talkative”. It can be traced further through Forster’s own correspondence; a letter to Lawrence dated 15 October 1927 indicates the pair’s acquaintance: ‘I write in bed, it is Edinburgh and the not very early morning. I got here last night, after lecturing to the English Association at Middlesbrough and Darlington. Does Middleton come from Middlesbrough or is that a dream?’. The following year, Forster stayed with Middleton, again writing to Lawrence: ‘I stopped a night 10 days ago with Middleton in Barracks at Scarborough. He took a great deal of trouble to make me comfortable – succeeded of course, but that is another and an easier matter’.

Forster has inscribed this copy to ‘T.H.M from E.M.F’ in the same way that Lawrence inscribed his copy: ‘E. M. F from T. E. S’. This strong familiarity is clearly evident, along with the importance of their time spent at Clouds Hill with Lawrence, as Forster has considered it remarkable enough to present a copy to this person on this, the publication day, of the first publicly available copy of Lawrence’s magnum opus.

Forster would also contribute a chapter to ‘T. E. Lawrence by his friends’ in the ‘Post-War general views’. Forster’s final words in this chapter were:

‘I do not want to sum T.E up. These are only a few notes, to be added to the common stock. I will finish them by recording that his was pleased by what I wrote to him about the Mint, and that he was also pleased when I helped to sell the proofs of the Seven Pillars for the benefit of another friend of his, to whom he had given them.

All these are scraps. The real framework, the place where his spirit will never cease to haunt, is Clouds Hill, and the gay motto over its doorway is the one beneath which I see him at rest.’

His final letter to T. E. Lawrence, dated 4th May 1935, is particularly poignant:

‘Dear T. E.

When would it be possible for you to have me to stop for a few days at Clouds Hill? Would about May the 20th be any good?

Yours ever

EMF’

T. E. Lawrence died from injuries received on May 13th.