Seven Pillars of Wisdom

The Complete 1922 Text

Twenty sets accompanied by the complete 1922 and 1926 texts in parallel

The Castle Hill Press parallel text is surely the most fascinating of all published editions of Seven Pillars of Wisdom

Throughout the design and production of the 1922 Seven Pillars, our decisions were strongly influenced by one idea: that the most important thing was the text. For this reason we took pains to reproduce accurately the wording of the manuscript, as modified by Lawrence's later amendments in the 'Oxford' proof. Also, reflecting Lawrence's own passion for good typography, we applied typesetting rules that most trade publishing houses and many private presses seem to have forgotten: no paragraph widows shorter than sixteen characters; no identical words at the beginnings or ends of successive lines; no hyphenation of proper nouns; no paragraphs beginning on the last line of a page, no fudged pairs of 'short pages', and so on.

The parallel texts

In this spirit, we chose to accompany the twenty extra-special sets by something both remarkable and extremely interesting - two additional volumes containing complete parallel texts of the 1922 and 1926 versions, specially typeset side-by-side in double column. Our aim in this setting was to align the beginning of each sentence that exists in both the texts. As a result, the reader can see at a glance exactly what was omitted, what was revised, what was moved, and so on.

Our edition of this 1000-page parallel text consisted of only 37 sets. Twenty sets, hand-bound in quarter Harmatan goatskin, accompanied the twenty 'extra-special' copies of Seven Pillars, and two sets, not for sale, accompanied copies 'A' and 'B'.

On the remaining fifteen sets, six went under British copyright law to the UK copyright-deposit libraries, one to the copyright owner, two to the editor, and one was retained by the press.

Specification of the extra-special sets

The twenty extra-special sets of Seven Pillars of Wisdom, the Complete 1922 Text, comprise six volumes, all in the same format, contained in two solander boxes.

1. Box 1: The Caslon setting

The two text volumes printed by Cambridge University Press on 100 gsm Supreme Book Wove, and bound by The Fine Bindery in full Harmatan goatskin, to an inlaid design by Glenn Bartley specially commissioned for the edition.

Other binding details: all edges gilt; hand-sewn head and tail bands, leather joints and suede doublures.

The companion volume of illustrations is bound in full black goatskin.

A box contains an interleaved proof set of the Seven Pillars portraits, printed on one side of the paper only. This is one of 250 numbered proof sets from the first printing of the volume of illustrations.

2. Box 2: The Parallel Texts

The 1922 and 1926 texts: two volumes, printed on 80 gsm Supreme Book Wove. The font is Times New Roman which, being designed specifically for newspapers, is better suited than Caslon to the two-column parallel setting. Hand-bound by The Fine Bindery in quarter brown Harmatan goatskin, with brown cloth sides and hand-marbled endpapers by Ann Muir. Top edges gilt.

The eight chapters in parallel text are quarter-bound in matching brown Harmatan goatskin with brown cloth sides.