SHAW, George Bernard (1856-1950). Playwright.
The typescript of T.E. Lawrence's Foreword to Bertram Thomas's Arabia Felix (1932), with Shaw's annotations and emendations in pencil. 1½ pages folio (foolscap), a little worn and dust-soiled, no date but December 1931.

Shaw's alterations comprise some deletions, the odd spelling correction, a few changes of words, ('foreword' for 'preface'; 'stink' for 'stench' - a suggestion not used, etc.), one or two re-arrangements, marginal suggestions and a footnote (deleted and not incorporated in the printed version). The final version in the first edition is substantially as altered by Shaw but signed 'T.E.S.' and with no acknowledgement of Shaw's assistance in Thomas's own Preface ('The laborious task of reading the manuscript has been undertaken by friends - Aircraftman T.E. Shaw (Colonel Lawrence), who has been so good as contribute a foreword. ...'). It is not clear where the few differences between this, apparently final, version and that printed in 1932 may have arisen.

Together with a letter from G. Wren Howard, a director of Jonathan Cape Limited, the publishers, to Sir Arnold Wilson (to whom Arabia Felix is dedicated), giving him this typescript ('thinking that possibly Mr Thomas would like to preserve it') for safe custody, 29 December 1931 ('1921' is evidently a typist's slip of the finger).
[No: 26076]