The poet James Elroy Flecker, author of ‘The Golden Journey to Samarkand’ and many other fine verses, served briefly as a diplomat in the Near East around 1911 before ill health forced him to retire. Here, however, he struck up a notable friendship with T.E. Lawrence and in 1925, a hundred years ago, the latter wrote a draft of an essay on him, intended for publication in a periodical. Flecker was at the height of his posthumous fame then, following the lavish London production of his verse drama Hassan, from 1923 onwards: and an earlier drama, Don Juan, was first published in 1925.
Lawrence recalled visiting Flecker at the British Vice-Consulate in Beyrouth (Beirut), where they discovered a mutual interest in literature and in languages. Lawrence noticed a copy of the anthology Georgian Poetry, and Flecker admitted he was in it, commenting that it was “jolly useful. Shows how much better a poet I am than my contemporaries.”
Lawrence paid tribute to Flecker’s poetry, calling him “the sweetest singer of our generation”, and also noted that the flamboyant Flecker was a serious student and scholar of verse: “he was wrapped up in poetics, making a wide, exact, skilful study of how other men had written.” The piece was unfinished and peters out into fragmentary notes.
The essay was not published at that time but two highly limited editions were later issued to protect copyright. As with anything else by Lawrence, particularly rarities, these are now highly collectable. The first edition was issued by The Corvinus Press in May 1937, the imprint of the bibliophile and private press enthusiast George Seymour, Viscount Carlow, a friend of Lawrence: the two shared these enthusiasms. It was in an edition of 30 copies only and intended purely for private circulation. The press also published Lawrence’s Two Arabic Folk Tales (1939).
A second copyright edition was published in the USA in 1937 by Doubleday Doran in a stated edition of 56 copies, although Lawrence’s brother and literary executor A.W. Lawrence thought there might in fact have been up to 70. It is not uncommon for limited editions to have a few extra copies that are hors de commerce, for file, replacement or administrative purposes.
I was a young enthusiast of both Flecker and Lawrence and wrote an essay on Flecker, ‘The Singer of Samarkand’, for Book & Magazine Collector 251, revised and collected in A Country Still All Mystery (2017). In February 1988, I noted that T. E. Lawrence’s work had come out of copyright under the then 50 year rule in the UK, but that it was shortly to go back into copyright with the introduction of the new 70 year rule as part of European Union harmonisation.
I therefore rushed out an edition of An Essay on Flecker under my own Mark Valentine imprint. I had earlier used this for booklets by Joel Lane, John Gale and John Howard.
In the essay, Lawrence reports Flecker’s description of an Italian bombardment of Beirut, when the poet became embroiled in a riot because he and another diplomat were mistaken by the local populace for Italians, and had to be rescued by a Turkish policeman. This hero was rewarded by the Russian service with fifty pounds, whereas, Flecker noted bitterly, the British Embassy only sent him a silver cigarette case. He knew his worth better than that, Lawrence observes.
Flecker had himself written a largely overlooked account of this episode, ‘Forgotten Warfare’, so I added this to Lawrence’s essay, the first time I think the link had been made.
Nicholas Blinko provided a cover portrait of Flecker, a version of the photograph above, but capturing his later worn, lean figure as well as the dandyish pose. I issued the A5 centre-stapled booklet in sand-yellow covers in an edition (as I recall) of 100 copies.
It was, alas, I have to confess, merely a flimsy photocopied affair, partly for speed and partly because that was all I could afford. If I had then been better acquainted with the private press world, I might have approached one of those and produced a more worthy publication. Still, it did at least bring the essay back into print for a bit, the Flecker essay was a useful additional sidelight, and Nick’s artwork was a great evocation of the poet. And even this edition can be quite collectable.
(Mark Valentine)
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