LONDON.- Maggs Bros Ltd announced that to mark the opening of its new headquarters at 48 Bedford Square, a Grade I listed building in the heart of Bloomsbury, it will stage a landmark exhibition of material relating to T. E. Lawrence and the Arab Revolt, opening on 6 July 2017.

To Aqaba marks the centenary of the capture of Aqaba by the irregular forces of the Arab Revolt, led by T. E. Lawrence. The exhibition features both loan material and items for sale, and has previously unseen items from all periods of his life, including the map he carried with him on his pioneer trip through the Middle East in 1909, sketch maps of Arabian terrain, a note ordering up weaponry for train-wrecking, original photographs taken by him during the campaign, and material from his later life, including the most important manuscript of Seven Pillars of Wisdom in private hands.

Highlights include:

• An extremely rare autograph letter written in 1909 while Lawrence was an undergraduate at Jesus College, Oxford, addressed to Mrs. Lane Poole, the wife of his tutor, Reginald Lane Poole. Signed by Lawrence, manuscript material from before the war is virtually unobtainable.

• The map of Northern Syria lent to T.E. Lawrence by Harry Pirie-Gordon, and used by Lawrence on his walking tour of Syria in 1909. It is stained darkly on the front panel of the case, and this stain figures prominently in Lawrence’s stories of the tour, as evidence in the story of him being violently assaulted by “bad Kurds”. He apologised to Pirie-Gordon for the stains on the cover, saying they were caused by his blood.

• T.E. Lawrence, Correspondence with the map making division of the Arab Bureau, 1915 – 1916. A small but important group of documents from the map-making division in Cairo, including twelve from Lawrence, whose first wartime employment was as a civilian mapmaker in the Geographical Section at the War Office in Cairo. This little group, which also includes letters from David Hogarth, Ronald Storrs and Ernest Dowson gives a unique insight into the inner workings of the intelligence community in Cairo, something of a focal point for the more cerebral top-brass of the first world war.

• A pencil note from Lawrence, undated but 1917, ordering up a Hotchkiss Gun and explosives for one of his celebrated train-wreckings.

• A group of extremely rare original prints of Lawrence’s own photographs, including atmospheric shots of the Arab Army in the field.

• T.E. Lawrence’s essay Tribal Politics in Feisal’s Area, 1918. One of the greatest Lawrence rarities, unnoticed by his bibliographers, printed in an edition of only 15 copies.

• A pencil portrait drawing of T.E. Lawrence by the Welsh artist Augustus John, also Lawrence’s later portrait painter, executed at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919.

• The most important manuscript of Lawrence’s magnum opus Seven Pillars of Wisdom in private hands, being a substantial portion of the true first edition of Seven Pillars (of which only five copies exist), very extensively rewritten in preparation for the Subscribers’ Edition.

• A unique proof copy of Seven Pillars of Wisdom. One of nine proof copies of the 1926 Subscribers or "Cranwell" edition – this is one of the earliest copies known, with Lawrence's splendid extended inscription to his literary agent, Raymond Savage.

• Winston Churchill was one of the chief mourners at Lawrence’s funeral, and dedicated the memorial to him at Lawrence’s school in 1936: the exhibition presents a small archive of material relating to this memorial, including a letter from Churchill preparing for the event, in which he writes, “What a tragedy it is that we have not got Lawrence with us to settle up Palestine. He alone could have done it and everybody would have taken his decision.”