Seven Pillars of Wisdom

About 92 years ago, to this day, T.E. Lawrence lost the whole of the manuscript of Seven Pillars "at Reading Station, while changing trains". He rewrote it.

The picture shows a first edition of the 1935 publication (it had been privately printed in 1926) and, alongside it, The Mint, written under the pseudonym A/c Ross. My first edition (1955) contains the caveat, by A.W. Lawrence: "For an unrestricted publication, the coarse words automatic in barrack-room speech have been eliminated."

The unexpurgated edition of The Mint was not published until 1973