Portraits for Seven Pillars of Wisdom

Fordingbridge: Castle Hill Press /J & N Wilson, 2008. Book. Illus. by Kennington, Eric, Roberts, William, John, Augustus, Sargent, Dobson, Gill, Colin, Rothenstein, William, Nicholson, W. Spencer, G.. Near Fine. Hardback. First Limited Edition. 4to - over 9¾" - 12" tall. A very good copy, a few small marks to pale cover otherwise fine. Bound limited edition set of the portraits + Camel March taken from a proof set from the 1926 Subscribers edition of Seven Pillars of Wisdom, This is one of just 220 numbered copies, bound by the Fine Bindery and printed by the Burlington Press in 1977. These are superb reproductions of the plates from the '26 SP in full colour. Bound in pale beige paper covered boards with title printed to front and with darker brown cloth spine. T.E. Lawrence commissioned illustrations for Seven Pillars of Wisdom from leading artists of the day. They were reproduced in colour in his lavish 1926 edition of the subscribers' abridgement. The most important of the illustrations were portraits. These showed readers not just faces, but also the exotic clothing worn by the Arab irregulars. The forty-one Seven Pillars Portraits are reproduced here full-page in the original colours, together with William Roberts' remarkable double-page 'Camel March'. Emir Feisal by Augustus John, oils, full colour. These were printed from proof plates put together by the original printer, Whittingham & Griggs..