Alternatives

It was time for a decision to be made on the future of SP, and there were a number of alternatives for consideration - he could abandon the whole project; Garnett's abridgement could be published, followed by a complete subscription edition, limited in number, but including the illustrations, which would be financed from what could safely be assumed would be reasonable profits on the abridgement; or he could simply print privately. It was estimated that 100 plain copies could be produced for £3 each, or 300 copies with fifty to sixty illustrations for £10 a copy. Robin Buxton, his 'humane banker' (1) who had once commanded the Imperial Camel Corps and was now a director of Martins Bank, suggested 120 copies, with all the illustrations, at a price of perhaps £25. The idea was tempting, and in October 1923 Lawrence was so far encouraged as to ask his colour printers, Whittingham & Griggs, to up-date their estimate.

Life was becoming a little more bearable and settled. Lawrence had recently taken over a small ruined cottage at Clouds Hill, just a mile or so up the road from Bovington Camp, and he planned to renovate it as 'a warm solitary place to hide in sometimes on winter evenings.' (2) Appreciative comments on the book continued to pour in. From Siegfried Sassoon - 'I am a lazy, desultory reader, & I abhor small type - How can you explain my 25 days-sustained interest, except by admitting that the Seven Pillars is damned interesting? . . . Damn you, how long do you expect me to go on reassuring you about your bloody masterpiece? It is a GREAT BOOK, blast you. Are you satisfied?, you tank-vestigating eremite -' (3), and from the same source on 6th December, 'Well; it is finished. I take off all the hats I ever wore - to you, & it. You alone know how it could have been bettered. I can only say that you make your effects without fail . . . Be happy; you really have pulled it off.' (4)

If he was not exactly happy, the practical possibility of publishing was at least more firmly established in his mind than at any previous time, and so Lawrence had begun yet again, this time at Clouds Hill, on the work of revision - a task which was to continue, according to Notes, 'during 1923 and 1924 (Royal Tank Corps) and 1925 and 1926 (Royal Air Force) in my spare evenings', and indeed until the very moment of publication. Lawrence wrote to Hogarth in November 1923 (5), somewhat optimistically as it turned out, that he anticipated completing the book in about one year, allowing perhaps a couple of hours a day from his scarce enough time off from the camp, and that the whole project could be completed within eighteen months. As for printers, the Clarendon Press at Oxford were strong contenders, although writing to Gertrude Bell a few months earlier he had said 'There is a slight smugness about the Clarendon Press, & I shrink from the task of educating them suddenly.' (6) But Cape was still in the hunt as a possible publisher, 'looking for a single millionaire at £3000.' (7)

1	L 222, E Garnett, 4.X.23
2	L 223, R Buxton, 4.X.23
3	Letters to, 26.xi.[23], p 154
4	Letters to, p 155
5	L 229, 14.XI.23
6	L 215, 18.viii.23
7	L 229, D G Hogarth, 14.XI.23

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The writing of Seven Pillars of Wisdom - full listing