'Fish yet in the sea'

Fearing that early subscribers would become impatient at the non-appearance of their long-awaited books, Lawrence circulated a printed letter, dated 1st June 1925, explaining that the time estimated for the production of SP had proved wrong. 'I am still unable to promise anything, and any subscriber who for any reason does not wish to wait the ending of the performance can have his money back on applying to me . . . but naturally I shall regret the loss of those who were willing to risk their money on what the Arabs would term "fish yet in the sea".' With this letter went two enclosures - a specimen sheet of the text which had been printed in Oxford in 1922, and a sample leaflet of pages from the edition in progress. The latter had earlier been produced as a specimen proof of 44 pages, containing eight chapters, including the original and later omitted Chapter I. This reprint had 40 pages, with, as a frontispiece, Kennington's coloured portrait of Ghalib, and seven chapters of text - Chapters II-VIII of the first leaflet, incorporating the textual changes of a later stage of revision than the first example, here being numbers I-VII.

Next section - Revision

The writing of Seven Pillars of Wisdom - full listing