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T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of
Wisdom
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Lawrence completed his third major draft of Seven
Pillars of Wisdom in 1922. Eight copies were printed by the
Oxford Times printing works on a proofing press. This 'Oxford
Text', running to about 334,500 words, remained unpublished until
1997. It is available as a
printed book but cannot be included on
this website because it is in copyright.
Between 1924 and 1926 Lawrence abridged the Oxford
Text to about 250,600 words for a lavishly illustrated subscription
edition, revising it as he did so. This was the text published in
Britain and America for general circulation after his death in 1935.
It has since been translated into many languages. British copyright
on the subscribers' abridgement expired on 1 January 2006.
In the USA it is still in copyright.
This online version of the subscribers' abridgement
includes:
- Brief defamatory passages in the 1926 edition
omitted from many subsequent printings
- The suppressed introductory chapter, omitted
from the 1926 edition on the advice of Bernard Shaw but included
in British printings after 1941
- The page-headings from the 1926 edition,
including some omitted from 1935 and later editions. A
second set of the chapters will be added showing where Lawrence
placed these headings in the 1926 printing, since many of them
have moved significantly in later settings
- The dates in the page headings, omitted from
some English printings
  
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