Word: mintings
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...talked his way back into the R.A.F. as Aircraftman T. E. Shaw (he took the name legally), and claimed to wish no other life. But before his death in a motorcycle accident in 1935, he brought together his old barracks notes, and some thoughts on military comradeship, in The Mint. By Lawrence's instructions, it is not to be published until crucial people mentioned in it are dead...
Nellie Tayloe Ross, Director of the U.S. Mint, shepherded a collection of U.S. coins and medals which included medallion heads of U.S. Presidents in platinum. Said she, after a good look around: "It's time we got away from the standard designs, and so many eagles on our coins and medals. When I get home I will try to give our young medalists some new ideas...
...obey Lawrence and still comply with U.S. copyright laws, Publishers Doubleday printed 27 copies of The Mint, stuck 25 in a safe and gave two to the Library of Congress. Technically, the 25 copies are for sale, but to discourage trade (until a few more characters die), Doubleday has priced them at $500,000 apiece. Meanwhile, anyone who promises not to quote from it may examine one of the Library of Congress copies...
With the permission of Lawrence's publishers, Critic David Garnett has now done a bit of lifting. In his Lawrence potpourri, which consists of specimens from Lawrence's books, articles and letters, two excerpts from The Mint appear for the first time. Reminiscent of E. E. Cummings' World War I memoir, The Enormous Room, the excerpts are vignettes of army life: the loneliness of a first night in barracks, the sense of class war between officers and men, the comradeship of airmen...
...there is something annoying in the title of this collection, and in the idea behind it. The essential T. E. Lawrence is to be found in the entirety of The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, in his collection of letters, and perhaps, when it appears, in The Mint-not in a paste & scissors job which cuts him up into snippets...