Quarto. 672pp. Four folding maps, 48 plates, with further line illustrations throughout the text. Third English edition, the first for general circulation after two prior privately printed editions. Original publisher's brown buckram cloth boards stamped in gilt, with the functional cream dustwrapper lettered in black. Fore and bottom edges uncut, with some leaves remaining unopened towards the end of the text block. Boards somewhat faded with some old damp-marking, dustwrapper worn with some loss. From the family library of Henry Williamson, with the envelope that once contained the '31 letters and a telegram' from T. E. Lawrence loosely inserted.

The First Trade edition (and third proper English edition) of Lawrence of Arabia's magisterial account of the Arab Revolt during the First World War.

Noted in Williamson's hand to the front of the envelope is '31 letters and a telegram from 'T. E. Lawrence' to Henry Williamson 1927-1935 (to his death in May 1935). H. Williamson 23 December 1963.' As well as his letters, the envelope once contained Lawrence's final telegram. The telegram, dated May 13th 1935, was addressed to Williamson in response to his most recent letter, confirming 'Lunch Tuesday wet fine, cottage 1 mile North Bovington Camp. Shaw.'. Lawrence was thrown from his motorcycle on his return from the post office; never to regain consciousness. The telegram was sold by Sotheby's in 2014 for £7,200.

Henry Williamson (1895-1977), novelist and writer on natural history and the English countryside, is predominantly remembered as the author of Tarka the Otter (1927) for which he won the Hawthornden Prize. His wartime experiences on the Western Front having altered his life inexorably, he spent the remainder of his post-war life in Devon, Norfolk and Suffolk, writing naturalistic novels very much in the romantic tradition. T. E. Lawrence was a dear friend of Williamson, who published 'The Genius of Friendship', an account of their correspondence in tribute to him, six year's after Lawrence's tragic death.