A kindly concern on the part of T.E. Lawrence based on his appreciative reading of Williamson’s Tarka the Otter before it became a classic.

The joy of it is that this slim, loving, carefully created and repeatedly revised book brought some financial success to Williamson in its wake.  In this case at least, Lawrence’s assertion didn’t prove true.

‘I wonder what you’ll do about money. Tarka will not have made you much, and the more carefully you write, the less likely you are to earn.’

Source: T.E. Lawrence, quoted in Henry Williamson, Tarka the Otter: His joyful water-life and death in the two rivers, illus. C.F. Tunnicliffe (Harmondsworth: Puffin Books, 1976 (1927)), p. 11

Photo credit: rawpixel at pixabay.com