Quarto. [2], 206pp. Original publisher's blue cloth, lettered in gilt, printed paper dustwrapper. Some edge wear, cloth fading and marked towards all edges. Minor loss to head of spine on the toned jacket, shelf-wear to edges, predominantly top. Spotting to endpapers, with the bookplate of Richard L. Calvert Williamson to the front inner board. With 10 newspaper clippings relating to Lawrence, 5 photocopied articles, and 2 postcards of T. E. Lawrence, addressed to Richard Williamson. From the Williamson family library, recently dispersed.

When in 1922 T. E. Lawrence enlisted in the ranks of the R.A.F. under the name of John Hulme Ross, he was in a strange physical and mental state as the result of his war experiences. Upon the discovery of his identity he was discharged, but was allowed to re-enlist two and a half years later, this time using the name of Shaw, under which he had meanwhile served in the Tank Corps. From his notes, many times re-written and revised, he constructed The Mint. In 1955 Cape published 2000 limited de-luxe copies and a trade issue of the same edition which had all the objectionable words lifted out of the text.

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.