First edition, second, corrected impression. An important biography, for which the authors were given access to Lawrence’s private papers by his younger brother and literary executor A.W. Lawrence: ‘[t]he year 1969 saw the appearance in book form of an earlier version of the text which had appeared in serial form in the Sunday Times (1968) [...] [:] The Secret Lives of Lawrence of Arabia. The foreign rights were readily snapped up. This book appeared in more translations than all other Lawrence books except, perhaps, Lawrence’s own Seven Pillars and Revolt. The book did not include quite all of the material contained in newspaper articles’ (O’Brien p. 381). The first edition of The Secret Lives of Lawrence of Arabia was published in September 1969 and this second impression was published later in the same month. As O’Brien notes, there is a correction to the account of Lawrence’s funeral on p. 275, which read ‘Only one hymn was sung, Lawrence’s favourite, “Jesu, Lover of my Soul”’ in the first printing, but was corrected to ‘Only one hymn was sung, “Jesu, Lover of my Soul”’ in this second impression.

Although not marked as such, this copy is from the library of the distinguished Lawrence scholar Jeremy Wilson, the editor of T.E. Lawrence’s Minorities (London, 1971), the author of the National Portrait Gallery catalogue T.E. Lawrence: Lawrence of Arabia (London, 1988) and the authoritative biography Lawrence of Arabia: The Authorised Biography of T.E. Lawrence (London, 1989), and the co-founder, with his wife Nicole, of the Castle Hill Press, which has published scholarly editions of works by Lawrence and the definitive series of Lawrence’s letters. As a historian, Wilson was sceptical about the biographical value of The Secret Lives of Lawrence of Arabia and felt that the authors’ lack of experience led to inaccurate or uninformed statements and interpretations, which ‘were presented with a tremendous veneer of research and authority’ (T.E. Lawrence’s Minorities; An Editor’s Postscript (Fordingbridge, 2006), p. 5).

The dustwrapper on this copy appears to be a later state, with the original price of 42 shillings (i.e. £2 2s or 2 guineas) cut away from the corner of the upper flap of the dustwrapper and replaced with a label giving a higher price of £2 8s and the decimal price of £2.40. These changes suggest that this copy may have been issued by the publisher in 1971, when a transition period meant that both pre-decimal and decimal currencies were legal tender (and thus prices were often expressed in both).

O’Brien E302 (not noting this state of the dustwrapper).