[Literature] (Lawrence, T.E., and Sir Ernest Macleod Dowson). A Short Note on the Design and Issue of Postage Stamps Prepared by the Survey of Egypt for His Highness Husein Emir & Sherif of Mecca & King of the Hejaz

El-Qahira (Cairo): (Survey of Egypt and Government Press), 1918. First and limited edition, #64/200 numbered copies, presented to Major General Sir Louis Jean Bols. 4to. Text printed in red and in black. With a frontispiece printed in green within a brown and tan decorative border with nine mounted stamps, as well as 12 color plates of postage stamps within decorative border, and one folding appendix. Publisher's cream boards, printed with a green arabesque design, light soiling and scuffing to boards; all edges trimmed; green patterned endpapers. Not in O'Brien

Following the fall of Damascus in 1919, Ottoman postage stamps could no longer be used in the Hejaz. Although not credited within the above work, it was Lawrence who suggested that new stamps be issued as a means of bolstering the new nation, now independent of the Ottoman dominion. In the brief introduction, the Director of Survey of Egypt, Sir Ernest Macleod Dowson credits and gives thanks to T.E. Lawrence for his contribution to this work: "It is desired to take this opportunity to express the obligation due to all those who gave assistance or counsel, in particular to El Emir 'Awrunis of the Northern Armies of his Highness the King of the Hejaz, at whose suggestion the work was undertaken, and to whose critical acumen the success met with must largely be ascribed."

Sir Louis Jean Bols (1867-1930) served as Edmund Allenby's Third Army Chief of Staff in the Sinai and Palestine campaigns, and was the Chief Administrator of Palestine until June 1920.

Very rare. According to RBH, this is only the second copy offered at auction since 1962.

This lot is located in Philadelphia.