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In 1919, what British officer lost the manuscript for his "Seven Pillars of Wisdom", so he rewrote it from memory?
Question
#106240. Asked by star_gazer. (Jun 11 09 1:48 AM)
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zbeckabee
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As a sidebar, addendum or seque to the above:
He wrote two-thirds of Seven Pillars of Wisdom, his history of the Arab revolt, at odd moments during the Peace Conference at Paris; the introduction was written in an airplane flying from Paris to Cairo. At Reading railway station, the following December, the two-thirds-finished MS was stolen. He set to and rewrote the whole thing in three months— 34,000 words of it at one sitting, between sunrise and sunrise. Published and distributed privately, the book cost him some £10,000. To pay off his debt he made a popular abridgment (in two nights, with the help of two other airmen), the best-selling Revolt in the Desert. Lawrence himself never made a penny out of either book but some of his friends did. He sent a copy of Seven Pillars of Wisdom to his good, hard-up friend Poet Robert Graves, with a note, "Please sell when read." Graves sold it for £300. Offered a French translation of Revolt in the Desert, Lawrence gave his permission on one condition—that the book must have printed on its jacket: "The profits of this book will be devoted to a fund for the victims of French cruelty in Syria." Present U. S. price of a copy of Seven Pillars of Wisdom: $1,000 (alltime highest price: $5,000).
 http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,744818-2,00.html
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Watchkeeper
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The title is a taken from the book of Proverbs, chapter 9:
Wisdom has built her house,
She has hewn out her seven pillars;
She has slaughtered her meat,
She has mixed her wine,
She has also furnished her table.
She has sent out her maidens,
She cries out from the highest places of the city,
"Whoever is simple, let him turn in here!"
As for him who lacks understanding, she says to him,
"Come, eat of my bread
And drink of the wine I have mixed.
Forsake foolishness and live,
And go in the way of understanding.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=proverbs%209&version=50
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