Marginal Notes 38: My first experience of T. E. Lawrence
Over the past seven decades we have had the pleasure of handling several author specific collections. These have included Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope, Arthur W. Upfield, Maurice Sendak, Thomas J. Wise, Edward Thomas and Winston S. Churchill and his family.
My first experience cataloguing an author collection was not as part of our stock, but as a valuation. In the 1970s I was engaged to value and compile a catalogue of the T. E. Lawrence collection of Tom Erickson who, unbeknown to me, was said to be ‘a well-known Melbourne standover man who described himself as a private detective’. The catalogue listed 26 items, including books by and about TEL, manuscript material, photographs and letters, boots and putties and an Air Force hand towel with ‘T. E. Shaw’ written in mapping ink. I believe the collection was sold to an American collector – I was never paid for my work.
Since then, we have handled several important collections of T. E. Lawrence material, all bought and paid for!
