TE. Lawrence had from an early age a great love of books and he read, wrote and collected them throughout his life. In August of 1910 he had written to his mother;
Why cannot one make one’s books live except in the night, after hours of straining? And you know they have to be your own books too, and you have to read them more than once. I think they take on something of your personality, and your environment also – you know a second hand book sometimes is so much more flesh and blood than a new one – and it is almost terrible to think that your ideas, yourself in your books, may be giving life to generations of readers after you are forgotten.
Surely a “holy grail” for all T.E. Lawrence collectors and scholars is a book of TE’s that was in the cottage at Clouds Hill in 1935 at the time of his death.
These were catalogued for inclusion in “T.E. Lawrence by his Friends” in 1937, this is a comprehensive listing covering nearly all of the volumes. According to a letter from A.W. Lawrence, the catalogue was apparently undertaken by “2 professional librarians” and is complete except for a “second copy of Baring’s Per ardua left out by accident” and “A copy of the SP 1926 edition moved for safety and not returned”. Although, according to a unique copy of “Friends” annotated in pencil by A.W. there were seven other omissions, clearly noted in this particular volume, now in a private collection.
Following TE’s death the library was catalogued and photographed. In the wonderfully clear original photographs that result, it is just possible, sometimes, to read an actual title sitting on the shelves. Without the presence of the books Clouds Hill was to appear rather barren and plain. A situation remedied to some extent by a display by Wing Commander Reggie Sims, a display itself now gone.
It was mainly due to the prevailing conditions at the cottage and concerns for security that the books were dispersed. Those that were sold through J.G. Wilson, proprietor of London booksellers J. & E. Bumpus Ltd, had a, now familiar, bookplate attached, although AW retained some few volumes and these do not contain the bookplate and were later sold by AW mainly when he left his Yorkshire home in the 1980s, on occasions these appear in commerce.
The bookplates themselves can cause confusion and as we detailed in another of our notes there are fake bookplates around so caveat emptor.
So, here is a genuine volume from the library at Clouds Hill. It is a biography; Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson, by E.M. Forster, published by Edward Arnold & Co in 1934. It bears the correct bookplate and has added interest in a number of respects.
Firstly it is by a great literary friend of TE’s, Edward Morgan Forster (1879-1970), the renowned scholar and novelist. In addition we have a record of TE’s thoughts and feelings upon reading this very book, related in a letter to Forster dated 24. v. 34 from his lodgings at 13 Birmingham Street, Southampton:
Dear E.M.F., It is Thursday night, and I have just finished your life of G.L.D., upon which I have been quietly happy for many evenings. In the daytime I run boats up and down the Solent (and shall do, for another month) and in the evening I try always to read a little.
Your book has been quite precious. The restraint, the beautiful tidiness of it, the subtlety, and its commonsense… your glorification of quiet and care for the average man…all these points lift it far above ordinary biography. It must have been hard to do, but seldom can an artist have so surely and confidently achieved his aim. The very care to avoid the unattainable is wisdom. Full marks to you. I wish I had known G.L.D.
I found pleasure in your wit widespread over the pages. The sentence ‘she forgave him’ is almost your best: not so quotable as the smoking-room chairs, but of greater style. I looked back at it three or four times as I read further, just for the pleasure of its finality.
Your quotations, where you quote so often, are quite beautifully inlaid into the texture. It is a very self-sacrificing book too. Very very good.
I am late telling you so: but I was away in Wolverhampton when I got the book, and my leisure for reading is now so small. March next, and I leave the R.A.F. for a boundless prospect of leisure at Clouds Hill. Let us try to meet then, Yours T.E.S.
We perhaps, hear a rather weary TE, busily involved in testing the five R.A.F. armoured target boats at Southampton The letter, (printed in David Garnett’s “Letters of T.E. Lawrence”, 1938 and in Jeremy and Nicole Wilson’s, “T.E. Lawrence Correspondence with E.M. Forster and F. L. Lucas”, 2010), takes us from his room at Southampton to Wolverhampton, where he had visited Henry Meadows Ltd the builders of the boat engines, each target boat having three. Then finally returning to Clouds Hill where his other books were now gathered together, patiently awaiting his return after lodging in a number of locations over the years. Regrettably, a return that was not to be ‘boundless’ but for all too short a time. Perhaps not too surprising in a busy life he very slightly mis-quotes Forster, “she forgave him” actually reads, “she forgives him” p.161.
He wrote at least two other letters on the 24th May, one to Clare Sydney Smith of “The Golden Reign” period, now posted to Singapore and one to an RAF officer G.W.M. Dunn planning work for the following week.
Reading “T.E. Lawrence Boats for the R.A.F” published by Castle Hill Press in 2012 reveals the busy and in many ways satisfying time that TE was experiencing as he assisted in preparing the armoured target boats. A period of work that was very important to him and provided much satisfaction, often underestimated by some of his biographers.
So here is a fascinating association copy, providing a book that nestled at Clouds Hill, with the additional bonus of offering a glimpse into a brief period of TE’s life and thoughts.
