22 NOVEMBER 1940, Page 48

Seven Pillars of Wisdom. By T. E. Lawrence. (Cape. zos.

6d.) THIS first complete and unabridged edition of the Seven Pillars is one of the most welcome books of the autumn. Whatever our opinion of the author's personality, expressed with em- barrassing self-consciousness, or his style, a bit half-timber, with its echoes of Doughty and the Elizabethans, this is a great classic of war literature. Those who have waited for a else sp edition are lucky; it is a far pleasanter production than the huge unwieldy volume Lawrence himself planned. It has been possible to retain fourteen of_ the illustrations and four maps.