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(LAWRENCE, T.E) FORSTER, E.M: AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED TO WARWICK JAMES [with] ‘T. E. LAWRENCE BY HIS FRIENDS’
£4,250.00
London Cape 1936
Dated 17.6.36. Single sheet
Forster writes: “Dear Sir, At Mr A.W. Lawrence’s request, I send you a couple of extracts from letters written to me by the late Colonel Lawrence. I have added a few comments in square brackets. If you will kindly let me know if this sort of thing is helpful to you, I may be able to send further extracts in the course of my work. Yours faithfully, E.M. Forster.”
[With]
JAMES, W. WARWICK: HIS OWN TYPESCRIPT COPY OF HIS LETTER TO E. M. FORSTER: Single page, dated 19th June, 1936, in which he states:
‘I should certainly be only too glad to have any communications you have about Colonel Lawrence’s music… It appears to me that T.E.’s attitude to music was: i) as a listener, and chiefly to the gramophone, (ii) he was not a performer, (iii) music had become an interest in later years and his pleasure in it was not markedly evident in earlier years’
Forster may well have been of some help to Warwick James having spent much happy time at Clouds Hill with T.E, Lawrence amongst the music. Alec Dixon notes in his chapter of ‘T.E. Lawrence by his friends’: ‘Later, when Mr E. M. Forster came down for a week-end, we were all impressed to spring-clean the cottage and chop firewood. In the midst of our bustle T.E. sat at a table in the upstairs room fiddling with a wireless set. I said nothing at the time, although I knew that T.E. professed to be contemptuous of wireless sets. But when he put up an aerial and installed the set on a corner table my curiosity was too much for me. “What’s the idea of the wireless, T.E?” I asked. He looked round with a grin and said: “It’s for Forster… It occurred to me that he might like to hear Big Ben strike while he is shut out of the world down here.” Very faint central fold line and minor pin marks to the top left Faint central fold line and minor pin marks to the top left-hand corner else in very good condition indeed. 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.’
[With]
LAWRENCE, A.W. EDITS: ‘T. E. LAWRENCE BY HIS FRIENDS’: Published by Jonathan Cape, 1937. A first edition, first printing published by Cape in 1937. Octavo. Original maroon cloth gilt. Pp. 595. Includes the chapter on ‘Post-War general views’ by E. M. Forster and a chapter by W. Warwick James in the ‘Music’ section. Very slight spotting to the cloth but very bright and with bright gilt. Occasional slight foxing and fore-edge foxed. A very good plus, tight, clean copy in very good plus, slightly nicked and rubbed dustwrapper which has not been price-clipped. This work sold very well and was reprinted a number of times and an abridged edition issued but the first edition is very scarce, especially so in dustwrapper.
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- Description
Description
London Cape 1936
Dated 17.6.36. Single sheet
Forster writes: “Dear Sir, At Mr A.W. Lawrence’s request, I send you a couple of extracts from letters written to me by the late Colonel Lawrence. I have added a few comments in square brackets. If you will kindly let me know if this sort of thing is helpful to you, I may be able to send further extracts in the course of my work. Yours faithfully, E.M. Forster.”
[With]
JAMES, W. WARWICK: HIS OWN TYPESCRIPT COPY OF HIS LETTER TO E. M. FORSTER: Single page, dated 19th June, 1936, in which he states:
‘I should certainly be only too glad to have any communications you have about Colonel Lawrence’s music… It appears to me that T.E.’s attitude to music was: i) as a listener, and chiefly to the gramophone, (ii) he was not a performer, (iii) music had become an interest in later years and his pleasure in it was not markedly evident in earlier years’
Forster may well have been of some help to Warwick James having spent much happy time at Clouds Hill with T.E, Lawrence amongst the music. Alec Dixon notes in his chapter of ‘T.E. Lawrence by his friends’: ‘Later, when Mr E. M. Forster came down for a week-end, we were all impressed to spring-clean the cottage and chop firewood. In the midst of our bustle T.E. sat at a table in the upstairs room fiddling with a wireless set. I said nothing at the time, although I knew that T.E. professed to be contemptuous of wireless sets. But when he put up an aerial and installed the set on a corner table my curiosity was too much for me. “What’s the idea of the wireless, T.E?” I asked. He looked round with a grin and said: “It’s for Forster… It occurred to me that he might like to hear Big Ben strike while he is shut out of the world down here.” Very faint central fold line and minor pin marks to the top left Faint central fold line and minor pin marks to the top left-hand corner else in very good condition indeed. 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.’
[With]
LAWRENCE, A.W. EDITS: ‘T. E. LAWRENCE BY HIS FRIENDS’: Published by Jonathan Cape, 1937. A first edition, first printing published by Cape in 1937. Octavo. Original maroon cloth gilt. Pp. 595. Includes the chapter on ‘Post-War general views’ by E. M. Forster and a chapter by W. Warwick James in the ‘Music’ section. Very slight spotting to the cloth but very bright and with bright gilt. Occasional slight foxing and fore-edge foxed. A very good plus, tight, clean copy in very good plus, slightly nicked and rubbed dustwrapper which has not been price-clipped. This work sold very well and was reprinted a number of times and an abridged edition issued but the first edition is very scarce, especially so in dustwrapper.
