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Journal
of the T. E. Lawrence Society Vol. I, No. 1, 1991 Edited by Jeremy Wilson T. E. Lawrence and the Bodleian A. J. Flavell Since I am certain that it is unnecessary for me to give you much background on Lawrence's early life, I will begin at the point when Lawrence with his family came to live in Oxford in the summer of 1896. The main reason which caused this somewhat nomadic family to settle in Oxford was the need to provide a good education for the four, later five, boys. Thomas Chapman was himself an old Etonian, but the changed circumstances of his life meant that he was no longer in a position to seek this standard of education for his sons. Oxford could, however, provide a good school, the City of Oxford High School for Boys, founded some fifteen years earlier by the City Corporation and the university to provide a good education for local boys, both for those going into business and those who might go on to the university. T.E. Lawrence was enrolled there with his brother Bob, to be followed in turn by Will, Frank and Arnold. Lawrence did not give signs at school of being a potential scholar, but he was recognised as an intelligent and determined boy. His main interests were history, particularly of the Middle Ages, and archaeology - interests which had been inspired to a large extent by the cycle rides he undertook to historic places with his father and later with school- friends such as C. F. C. Beeson. An interest in brass rubbing took him to much of southern England. While a schoolboy he became interested in the practical side of archaeology, and with his friend Beeson he paid the workmen, who in the years 1906-7 were digging up some important areas of Oxford, to seek out pottery, tokens and other artefacts. These were given to the Ashmolean Museum and the help of the two archaeologists was duly acknowledged in the Annual Reports of that body. Lawrence did moderately well in his Junior Local Examinations, taken days later he set out on the most ambitious of his French tours, which took him as far as the Mediterranean coast in search of the French castles which were to provide the raw material for his finals thesis. In his second year Lawrence returned to the Arabian theme, and twice within the month of October 1908 ordered up the Bodleian's copy of Doughty's Travels in Arabia Deserta This was the 1888 edition published in Cambridge, of which five hundred copies had been printed. The book had been remaindered, and by 1907 all copies had been sold, at which point it became a rare book and one difficult to find on the second-hand market. Arabia Deserta became to Lawrence 'almost a bible', and it was a book which he referred to in the library on other occasions. In January 1909 Lawrence looked at Paul Riant's Expéditions et Pèlerinages des Scandinaves en Terre Sainte au temps des Croisades (1865-9), and in February he ordered an account of the archaeological work at Jerusalem carried out by the Palestine Exploration Fund and also an account (in German) of a journey in southern Turkey. In the summer of 1909 Lawrence undertook his epic journey to the Middle East for which, no doubt, this preparatory reading proved of some value. In the autumn of 1909 Lawrence was hard at work on the thesis he based on his travels in France and the Middle East. In November he requested Emanuel Rey's Les Colonies Franques de Syrie aux XIIme et XIIIme Siècles (1883), an important work, in which Rey argued that there were two groups of Crusader builders, one inspired from France, the other from Byzantium, a view which Lawrence supported in his thesis. The work was also of use in the Sinai survey and was cited in The Wilderness of Zin. Later on in the same month he ordered several works on old furniture, perhaps as a relaxation from his more serious studies, but also to follow up another facet of his antiquarian interests. Lawrence's thesis, entitled The Influence of the Crusades on European Military Architecture to the End of the XIIth Century, was a great success, and was an important factor in his obtaining a first-class degree. Following this triumph, Lawrence at one stage intended to work for his B.Litt. degree, but the opportunity arose to join the British Museum team organised by D. G. Hogarth which was to excavate the ancient mound at Carchemish. Hogarth, an archaeologist of considerable repute, had become the Keeper (or head) of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford in 1909, and had been introduced to Lawrence in January of that year by E. T. Leeds. As a fellow of Magdalen College in Oxford, Hogarth was able to assist Lawrence in obtaining a Senior Demyship (or scholarship) there in December 1910. Lawrence spent much of the next four years in the Middle East and only returned to Oxford for short periods. John Johnson, later Printer to the University, was a Senior Demy at Magdalen at this time and a fellow-archaeologist, but he later claimed to have met Lawrence only once. However, Lawrence did come into contact with another Fellow of Magdalen, the oriental scholar Arthur Cowley. He certainly refers to him in a letter to Hogarth as early as February 1913. Cowley, who was born in 1861, had been a master at Magdalen College School in Oxford before becoming an assistant to Adolf Neubauer, the Bodleian Library's oriental specialist. On Neubauer's retirement in 1899, Cowley succeeded him as sub-librarian, and became a fellow of Magdalen in 1902. Dr Cowley was one of the leading semitic scholars of the day, but one of his main leisure interests was the language and culture of the Hittites, which inevitably brought him into contact with Hogarth and Lawrence, his fellow-members of Magdalen. Cowley was interested enough to visit the site at Carchemish together with his wife in the company of Hogarth in the spring of 1914. Lawrence commented to his mother: 'It is so quaint having Cowley here, looking as exact as he does in Oxford'.4 Cowley was a rather formal, ceremonious man, at home in the common rooms of Oxford rather than in the Middle East. Lawrence did not fail to appreciate the situation, and wrote to E.T. Leeds: 'Months since I wrote:- and now the circumcised are with us. You, O Leeds, cannot appreciate what a Cowley upon the Euphrates is ... Cowley is not good at a ditch ... nor is he speedy upon the flat, but he is very very exact and sure. He appears just as in the High ... I mean, he is recognisable many furlongs off. He is not at home with Kurds ... he feels a slight sense of restraint in mingling with them. This afternoon he sat for an hour or two upon a house-top in the village, watching a native dance and a wrestling match. With him D.G.H., Mrs. Cowley and myself. The roof endured until the end. `Cowley is likewise a study in contemplating an ants' nest developing in his tent floor ... he is quite unfitted for such crises:- he gets flurried. Also he is not at home with a revolver: it gets in his way at tea-time, and in bed. It is really great fun having him here.'5 It would be interesting to know what Cowley made of Lawrence and his reception at Carchemish. But Lawrence, despite this youthful irreverence, obviously had a high regard for Dr Cowley as a scholar, and Cowley in his turn was no doubt helpful and encouraging to the young archaeologist. Following the end of the first season of digging in the summer of 1911 Lawrence set out to re-visit some of the places which he had visited on his first trip to the Middle East. He had returned to Oxford by 26 August, and on 23 October he was in the Bodleian requesting four books of poetry by Edmund Spenser. Poetry was one of Lawrence's lifelong interests, and at this stage he was much taken with the mediaevalism of Spenser. Writing many years later to Ernest Altounyan, he spoke of Spenser's Faerie Queen: 'I've read that, heaps and heaps of times. I lived on it til 1916 or so'.6 On another shorter 'Which is not bad' he adds, 'for nearly half of them are mine ... 'a man of straw'. He does not intend the Libraries to have but some correspondents, including a lady from Yorkshire who wanted to study the 'psychology of Lawrence for literary purposes', were referred to the author, who at this stage, wearied by such attention, had become somewhat difficult to track down. Dr Cowley had not given up hope of getting a copy of the subscribers' edition of Seven Pillars for the Bodleian, and in March 1926 he went for advice and help to Lionel Curtis, a fellow of All Souls and a close friend of Lawrence, who was entrusted with forwarding any mail sent to him at All Souls. Curtis wrote in reply, explaining the situation as he saw it: 'My advice to you is that if you stay quiet you will get a copy of the edition de luxe. Lawrence has a deep affection for Bodley but if anyone tries to put pressure on him, as I understand the British Museum has done, he will fight them with all the resources of his unrivalled ingenuity. You hold the original manuscript. From this Lawrence had printed on the linotype of the Oxford Chronicle five copies, each of which was proof corrected in his own handwriting and sumptuously bound in leather. Inside the cover of each copy he wrote that it was his property. Colonel Dawnay has one, Hogarth and G. Dawson had copies at one time. Only Lawrence knows where the others are. The text of the forthcoming edition de luxe is substantially different from that of the manuscript and the five linotype copies and considerably shortened. To summarise; my main impression is that if you sit tight Bodley will get a copy of the edition de luxe and no other library will do so except by purchase in years to come.' Shortly after the first copies of the subscribers' edition were distributed in December 1926, a copy appeared in the Bodleian. Since its provenance was unknown Dr Cowley was puzzled and wrote to the printer, Manning Pike, who replied on 29 January 1927: 'I do not know if the book is for the Library or for you personally; but unless he [Lawrence] had done it himself no copies have been sent to any library in spite of demands from them. I would suggest that you keep the volume until we learn his wishes.' Cowley wrote to Pike again on 31 January and enclosed a letter to him to be passed on to Lawrence, who was now serving in India with the RAF. Lawrence's reply to this letter, written from Drigh Road near Karachi, is pasted into the Bodleian's copy of Seven Pillars and runs as follows:
Later in the same letter Lawrence continues: 'You'll have to index it under Shaw, that being my initials in it. God help the catalogue with me, some day, for not even Lawrence is the correct and authentic name which I will eventually have to resume. I've published as Lawrence, as Shaw, as Ross: and will, probably eventually publish as C. [by which he refers to his father's original name of Chapman]. What a life! Your letter came to me four days ago, with the last mail, to Karachi, where I languish for my sins in publishing a little bit of the Seven Pillars called Revolt in the Desert. I'm due to stay here till Jan. 1932, worse luck. I've put my address on the top of this scrawl: but Hogarth keeps in touch with me, and will forward anything you want to send him. I hope your fortunes, and Bodley's grow no less. Increase isn't a thing to wish, blindly.'9 Dr Kenyon, as director of the British Museum and therefore Lawrence's ultimate boss for the Carchemish dig, also got his library's copy on this personal and unofficial basis.10 Like Hogarth and Cowley, Kenyon was also a fellow of Magdalen College. Incidentally, the Bodleian catalogue under the Library's own rules for cataloguing referred to Lawrence as Shaw until 1988, when the change was made to the Anglo-American Cataloguing Code, second edition, under which rules he became Lawrence. In the remaining years of his life Lawrence rarely if ever visited Oxford. His family lived elsewhere, and his links with the city were broken. Dr Cowley died in 1931, shortly after his retirement. Back in April 1926 Curtis had written to Cowley, following a conversation with Lawrence, with this information: 'Lawrence turned up here on Friday and I sounded him out on the matter raised in your recent letter. He told me that the lino copy proof corrected in his handwriting and deposited with Col. Dawnay is destined for the Bodleian, and is so inscribed on the flyleaf. It should come to the Bodleian on Col. Dawnay's death at latest, or at any earlier date that Col. Dawnay may choose to deposit there. If I were you I should have a word with Col. D. (who is on the phone) and arrange if possible for an early (and perhaps provisional) deposit. So long as the copy remains in private hands the risk of loss or destruction is greater.' Of the eight copies of the 1922 Oxford edition, two had been used and broken up in the production of the 1926 subscribers' edition. Edward Garnett's copy, which Curtis had not known about, was sold to Harvard. The British Library acquired two copies, one from A. W. Lawrence, the other from the estate of Charlotte Shaw. By the mid- 1970s two copies (one of which had been Dawnay's) were in private hands in the United States, leaving one copy belonging to Eric Kennington. The Bodleian Library was fortunate enough to obtain this copy in 1977 in lieu of estate duty, thus fulfilling Lawrence's intention in spirit, if not in the letter. The fourth of the early versions of Seven Pillars came to the Bodleian in 1979, when the firm of Jonathan Cape generously offered to give their copy of the American copyright edition of 1926 to the Library on long-term deposit. The Bodleian Library, therefore, has important links with Lawrence, which are reflected in its holdings of his books and manuscripts. In addition to the early versions of Seven Pillars, the Library has a large collection of letters and papers, given mainly by Lawrence's family, and restricted until the year 2000. The letters include some of the earliest he wrote and span the whole of his life. This donation together with manuscripts and papers in the Library's unrestricted collections, constitutes one of the major research collections of Lawrence material in the world. In view of the price that Lawrence letters now fetch on the open market, and the frequency with which they appear, it has become more difficult for the Library to justify their purchase. At the point at which they become important, they also become too expensive. However, through the generosity of the current owner, the Bodleian does have on deposit the collection of letters formerly owned by E. T. Leeds's family. Apart from those books which have been received under the terms of the Copyright Act, the Library has acquired substantial additions of foreign publications and variant editions by means of gift and purchase, and it has also been able to purchase other individual items as they have appeared at auction. Last year, for example, it acquired the Corvinus Press edition of Two Arabic Folk Tales, this year it acquired An Essay on Flecker by the same press. It is to be hoped that the Bodleian can continue to collect books, manuscripts and ephemera relating to Lawrence in order to strengthen still further its already considerable holdings. I am sure that you will agree on the appropriateness of such a collection in a library which Lawrence himself used, and to which he and his family showed such generosity. References
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