Slow progress

By late February 1924, nearly twenty people had subscribed - among the early names on the list were such luminaries as Compton Mackenzie, H G Wells, Bernard Shaw, Hugh Walpole and Thomas Hardy. Readers of the Oxford-printed text, meanwhile, continued in their encouragement - in February 1924 E M Forster wrote 'You will never show it to any one who will like it more than I do: its subject and incidentals suit me: also my critical sense never stops telling me its fine.' (1)

By August Lawrence was informing Buxton of progress - 'The printing is moving. Oh so slowly: but it moves, & such things gather momentum: it's the first page which costs.....about £400 isn't it? However: if necessary we will sell 120 copies. I'm printing 200, so that there will be a powerful margin.' He also reported that he had found a possible solution to the American copyright problem. Doubleday had offered to do an American edition for 1,002 dollars. Perhaps only eight copies would be printed - two for Doubleday, two for the Congress Library and four for sale - 'I'd like to fix 'em at 10,000 dollars each, so that the edition would remain, unexhausted, on offer in the firm's catalogue!' (2)

September was the month of Pike's holiday in Cornwall. Lawrence had sent off a pile of proof sheets to the Shaws with the comment 'Please alter, mark, erase, add, abuse anything which hits you: either technical, or literary, or moral or intellectual', but Shaw was to add a fifth category to that list - political. For although he insisted that it was because the second chapter made a better beginning, it was at his instigation that the proposed opening chapter, with its bitter criticism of Britain's role in the outcome of the Arabian affair, was dropped, and other such outbursts toned down. When this suppressed first chapter was eventually published in Oriental Assembly in 1939, Shaw was pursued by the press for a statement on the motive behind his recommendation of this cut. He remained adamant that his advice was given solely on the basis that the omitted chapter 'was a bad opening', and it had nothing to do with 'political reasons'.

Lawrence was to comment of Shaw's editorial involvement that he 'left not a paragraph without improvement.....but some nearly died in the operation. Not a trace of anaesthetic!' (3), for besides concerning himself with these major items he also played havoc with the punctuation. Shaw wrote to Lawrence on 7th October 1924, 'Confound you and your book: you are no more to be trusted with a pen than a child with a torpedo', and followed this up with a typically bombastic but good-humoured lecture on punctuation, especially the use of semi-colons. Lawrence attempted a defence in his reply to Charlotte Shaw - 'G.B.S.'s punctuations strike me as literary, not conversational. Stops aren't necessary, really, at all.....' But the newly acquired semi-colons and other suggested changes remained. Pike returned from holiday to find himself virtually back at square one with his proof sheets - but 'everything was so clearly better that his repining was short' (4), and the foreword to the completed work was to include thanks to Mr and Mrs Bernard Shaw 'for all the present semicolons'.

Throughout the following months proof pages went to and fro between Lawrence and the Shaw's home at Ayot St Lawrence, as Mrs Shaw carried on with the task of proof reading. Usually the work came by post, sometimes with Lawrence on his motorbike. Charlotte's reward for her unstinting assistance and continuing encouragement was to be a copy of the subscribers' edition specially bound for her by McClelland, one of the leading bookbinder craftsmen of the day.

The copyright authorities approached Lawrence for library copies in rather early anticipation of the completion of his work, and were possibly as astounded as Lawrence claimed in a letter to Buxton in October 1924 (5) when he indicated to them that he did not intend complying with the Copyright Act.

In the same letter Lawrence told Buxton that 'the printing has reached page 55, in its penultimate form.....It's going to be an exceptionally fine edition.' He had been able to circulate a proof of the eight introductory chapters to such as Sydney Cockerell, C H St John Hornby and Buxton for their comments. This proof had included the first chapter which Shaw blue-pencilled.

1	Letters to, p 62
2	L 253, R V Buxton, 29.VIII.24
3	L 257, Sydney Cockerell, 15.X.24
4	British Museum additional manuscript 45903,4, 13th October, 1924, quoted by Stanley Weintraub, Private Shaw and Public Shaw, Cape, 1963, p 92
5	L 256, 6.X.24

Next section - Costs escalate

The writing of Seven Pillars of Wisdom - full listing