T. E. Lawrence Bibliography

ELT 45 : 3 2002 discredit them is straightforwardly readable. In Trial By Jury (1875), the Judge's genial admission that his preferment was "managed by a job—and a good job too!" cannot be taken as approval on Gilbert's part of such shenanigans, any more than can the First Lord of the Admiralty's account, in Pinafore (1878), of his scandalous rise to naval eminence. But when a work is shot through with total and pervasive irony, there isn't a "point" to get, and any attempt to locate one is doomed to frustration . Crowther, as I say, seems to know this yet, when faced with an apparently unresolvable ambiguity, promptly tries to resolve it. Thus, having shown how the song "A Wonderful Joy Our Eyes To Bless" (Utopia , Limited) is so ambiguous in tone that two critics have diametrically opposed views of its "seriousness"—"ambiguity can scarcely be more clearly displayed"—he plumps for the judgement of one of the quoted critics that Gilbert "really meant these lines." In other words, it's not really ambiguous, it's just difficult to figure out. Aside from this tendency to make occasionally heavy weather of Gilbert 's "contradictions," Crowther has produced a conscientious and valuable book that attempts to show the man and his work in a variety of lights, doing justice to his many-sidedness and volatility. Like so many of the apparently quintessential Victorians, he was a good deal less "Victorian " than is suggested in the thoughtless stereotype. Robert Fothergill --------------------------- York University, Toronto T. E. Lawrence Bibliography Philip O'Brien. T. E. Lawrence: A Bibliography. Second Revised and Expanded Edition. New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll, 2000. xiv + 894 pp. $95.00 THE FIRST EDITION of Philip O'Brien's massive bibliography, published in 1988, won the Besterman Medal of the British Library Association for the best bibliography published in Britain during that year. It was also very favorably reviewed in ELT (32.2, 1989, 241-45), and time has proven the correctness of these judgments. O'Brien's identification numbers for Lawrence's works are now found in almost every relevant rare books catalog. However, unlike Mozart cataloguer Ludwig von Kochel, O'Brien treats works about, as well as by, his subject. So the new edition, like its predecessor, consists of two parts. Part I, "The Lawrence Canon," is broken down into sections on Lawrence's books, prefaces , introductions, translations and other items; periodical articles by Lawrence; newspaper articles by Lawrence; and incidental works con346 BOOK REVIEWS taining writings of Lawrence. Part II includes books about Lawrence; incidental books containing chapters and references to Lawrence; periodical articles about Lawrence; and newspaper articles about Lawrence . Some items added to the new edition's listings are recent nonEnglish -language editions ofSeven Pillars of Wisdom. Indeed, one of the best features of this bibliography in both of its editions is its inclusion of translations. The fact that there are Danish, Hungarian, Swedish, Rumanian, Lettish, and Yugoslavian (as well as Iranian, Japanese, and Arabic) editions of Lawrence's masterwork testifies to his international reach. And this is true not only of Seven Pillars of Wisdom, but also of Lawrence's autobiographical sequel, The Mint, which details his life in the R.A.F. and Tank Corps. It is perhaps expected that there would be four English editions of this work, but the three French editions as well as German, Argentine, Spanish, Italian, Danish and Swedish editions may come as a surprise to readers lacking knowledge of Lawrence's world-wide following. Even his Oxford B.A. honors thesis, now entitled Crusader Castles, has appeared in four English editions, while his letters have been translated into all of the major European languages, and have even been published in a pirated edition in Taiwan. O'Brien's volume also reveals the steady production of new scholarly editions of Lawrence's works, including most notably J. M. Wilson's 1997 edition of the 1922 "Oxford text" of Seven Pillars of Wisdom and Malcolm Brown's 1988 Selected Letters. O'Brien's descriptive methods could not be more precise and comprehensive, allowing him to pinpoint details of text, printing and binding so that each edition can...