T.E. Lawrence | Seven Pillars of Wisdom, 1926, Cranwell Edition, Col. Pierce Joyce’s copy. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £33,600
This copy of T.E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom – an autobiographical account of his participation in the Arab Revolt – comes up at Sotheby’s in London on July 11 with an estimate of £26,000-£35,000. It is accompanied by a letter from Lawrence – subject of the film Lawrence of Arabia – to Galway born Colonel Pierce Joyce, expressing his relief that Joyce’s copy of Seven Pillars had reached him, expressing his own feelings about his book’s success, discussing Joyce’s recent retirement as military advisor to King Faisal of Iraq and move home to Ireland, mentioning his own Irish roots (“…We actually come from Killua, in Meath…”).
Col. Pierce Charles Joyce (1878-1965) had joined the Egyptian Army in 1907 and was a key figure in the British support of the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans from its outbreak in 1916. He was commanding officer of Operation Hedgehog, the British military mission to the new Arab army, meaning that for some time Lawrence was nominally under his command. In reality their work ran parallel, with Lawrence advising Emir Feisal – King of Iraq from 1921 to 1933 – on the Bedouin irregulars, and Joyce on the Arab Regulars. Joyce, like Lawrence, led operations against the Hejaz Railway; he also captured the Crusader Castle at Shobak, was responsible for logistical planning for the Allied advance northwards into Palestine, and commanded the armoured cars and artilllery that supported the Arab army in the second half of 1918.