Beschreibung:

GARNETT, David (1892-1981). Five autograph letters signed and one typed letter signed, to T.E. Lawrence, Hilton Hall, St. Ives, Huntingdonshire, 5 November 1927 to 21 December 1932. Together 17 pages, 4to . Through his father, the writer David Garnett became acquainted with Lawrence. In this series of letters, Garnett offers some criticism and praise for his work. After thanking him for suggesting to his father that he should give him a copy of Seven Pillars of Wisdom , he becomes quite critical of Lawrence's decision to publish it as a limited edition: "It is difficult for me to tell you what I think about The Seven Pillars. But I should like to say first that I think it was a terrible mistake to publish it in this limited form, and that I think you ought to publish it in a cheap & accessible edition....Great books exist for everyone to read: they are not part or property of the author: still less are they the property of a hundred and ten rich men." The letters include comments on other writers whom he admires, including Flaubert. He echoes his father's praise for The Mint , and comments: "...My first impression is that you are a queerer man than I took you to be from The Seven Pillars: (you have probably become queerer) queerer & less intellectual. You don't strike me from the Mint as intellectual at all: I see you as much more a man with the gift of words, a poet, an orator, a preacher, than a man of ideas or a thinker. Like the Seven Pillars the book is half record of fact, half spiritual experience: my father did well to compare it with Dostoevsky's House of the Dead. Your experience was far worse than his: convicts do not enlist for prison..." Extracts from these letters are published in Letters to T.E. Lawrence . (6)