Welsh Hero*

One is risen who is baiting the literary public almost as successfully as does Bernard Shaw. Indeed the new messiah once employed the alias "Shaw," and there were those who hoped and whispered that he had been born beneath a Shavian rose. Today, however, weighty British reference works have pinned down this elusive youth with the finality of taxidermists transfixing a butterfly. His name shall be henceforth Col. Thomas Edward Lawrence, his birth date Aug. 15, 1888, his land of origin Wales; and if the taxidermists have made a mistake, the joke is still very much upon the butterfly.

Lawrence of Arabia. To understand how this young Welshman has become a popular author,/- one must recall (TIME, July 26) how he played a leading role in kindling the Arab revolt against Turkey during the World War, and thus furthered the defense of the Suez Canal and the break-up of the Turkish Empire.

Colonel Lawrence personally dynamited 70 Turkish bridges and a score of Turkish railway trains. It was he who was instrumental in driving the Turks from Damascus with a Pan-Arab army, in the name of King Hussein of the Hejaz and Arabia, a few hours before Field Marshal Allenby's columns arrived to make the victory secure. It was Colonel Lawrence who represented the Pan-Arabs at the Peace Conference, protesting vainly when France received her Syrian mandate. And finally it is Colonel Lawrence who, today, sees his good friend Emir Feisal-- now King of Irak.

That Colonel Lawrence was able to rouse and wield the fierce, childish, nomadic Arab tribesmen into a victorious insurrection gives him a place in history altogether remarkable and imperishable. Remains to estimate his literary prowess.

Lawrence of London. Four hundred thousand words were set down by Colonel Lawrence to recount his adventures and the history ha had made. Then he lost the manuscript, rewrote 300,000 words. These were set up and an edition of eight copies printed, three copies being destroyed. By this conduct -- seemingly inspired by a genuine desire to restrict the tale of his personal adventures to the circle of his personal friends -- Colonel Lawrence created the impression that his book must contain devasting secrets. It did not; but the public got that idea, became ravenously curious, and has raised the Colonel's literary fame beyond all reason.

Meanwhile Colonel Lawrence had conceived the idea of a deluxe edition of his book, illustrated by the best contemporary artists. This was printed, and the few copies offered to the public were snapped up at 30 guineas ($150) apiece; but the book cost 90 guineas per copy to produce and so Mr. Lawrence went bankrupt. The present edition is to recoup this bankruptcy. The original work, called The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, is now on sale in a minute U. S. edition at $20,003 a copy;-- and the present volume is a very drastic abridgment.

Revolt in the Desert. Colonel Lawrence tells what he did simply, occasionally with power, always with insight, often in words assembled like so many pearls; but not, on the whole, in a manner to sustain interest. Apparently the abridgment was intended to give the reader all the dynamiting and slaughter at the expense of paring down the Arabian milieu. This was a doubtful course--like abridging the Iliad into a penny dreadful about a wooden horse. Fortunately, Mr. Lawrence has done his own abridging and retained more than a modicum in the original nobler and broader strain. The book is simply what its author pleases the public shall read; and such is the nature of vox populi that hosannas are being sung.

By way of apologia Colonel Lawrence writes finely in his preface: "They [the Arabs] were as unstable as water, and, like water would perhaps finally prevail. Since the dawn of life, in successive waves they had been dashing themselves against the coast of flesh. Each wave was broken, but, like the sea, wore away ever so little of the granite on which it failed. . . . One such wave (and not the least) I raised. . . ."

*REVOLT IN THE DESERT--T E. Lawrence --Doran ($3.00).

/-The Book of the Month Club is mailing some 50,000 copies of his book to its subscribers. (They can be returned, exchanged.)

*Third son of King Hussein.

*Purpose: to protect the copyright, since the book could have been pirated in the U. S. had it not been published and copyrighted here. It was not expected that, any of the 520,000 copies would be sold. Thus their contents would be kept privy to Colonel Lawrence's friends, although a copy had to be deposited in the Library of Congress, Washington, D. C., which anyone may read.