Two-volume paperback edition Edited with a Foreword by Jeremy Wilson Published by J. and N. Wilson for T. E. Lawrence Studies T.E. Lawrence's original 1922 text was nearly a third longer than that which was issued in 1935 as the "Complete and Unabridged" text. Lawrence's official biographer, Jeremy Wilson, spearheaded this ambitious project at the Castle Hill Press in order to finally bring that text to the public. The text provided here is taken from Lawrence's manuscript copy in the Bodleian Library and T. E. Lawrence's annotated copy of the 1922 Oxford Times printing. Lawrence's personal narrative of the revolt of Arab armies against the Turks during the First World War, SEVEN PILLARS OF WISDOM stands as a monument of modern literature and history. Bernard Shaw and Winston Churchill both described the book as one of the greatest in the English language. But the story of its publication is a famous saga onto itself. Lawrence had nearly completed a first draft manuscript in 1919, but this was stolen or lost along with his briefcase during the month of November of the same year at the Reading train station and never recovered. Lawrence, from memory, created an entirely new draft by May 11, 1920 and then spent two years carefully editing it. The product of this was the famous 1922 'Oxford Text' which he shared with only a few friends and critics. Though one of them, George Bernard Shaw, called it a 'masterpiece' Lawrence still felt it unready and edited out nearly a third of it. This resulted in the famous 'Subscriber's Edition', of which Lawrence printed fewer than 200 copies at great personal financial cost. And only 22 copies of the American issue were printed to secure copyright and never offered for sale. This was followed by "Revolt in the Desert", the first edition generally published of the work, in a further abridged format. It was only after Lawrence's death in 1935 that the full text of the Subscriber's Edition was made available by the publisher Jonathan Cape to the public as SEVEN PILLARS OF WISDOM. Six decades would pass before the original text, the 'Oxford Text' in all of its over 300,000 word glory, through Wilson's efforts and those of the Castle Hill Press, would finally be available to general readers and students of the work of T.E. Lawrence.