DECEMBER 29 -JANUARY 2

The first comes at Christmas 1922, when Mountsier and Seltzer arrive (separately) to stay with Lawrence at his new abode in Taos, the Del Monte "ranch" (actually a rather primitive log-cabin in the woods outside Taos). Mountsier brings with him the TS2 text he should have sent to Seltzer some weeks previously (relations between Lawrence's agent and his U.S. publisher had deteriorated). Apparently the new ending is discussed and Lawrence, to what must have been his considerable dismay, discovers the cutting error. There isn't time to correct this before Seltzer returns next day to New York, so a day or so later Lawrence copies out from his retained copy of TS1R the missing 375 words (from [...broken attachments, broken...] to [...cold, dark, inhospitable sea...] and posts this to New York with a "covering" letter telling Seltzer that herewith is the [...last page...] that is missing from his setting text. Some eight days later Lawrence sends the same 375 words to his UK publisher Secker in London. Both covering letters tell his two publishers that this is the text missing from their TS2 manuscripts and for them [...not to lose it...]. At this juncture, around mid-January 1923, both the UK and U.S. TS2 texts are identical, both having the Lawrence's intended [...cold, dark, inhospitable sea...] ending. And indeed, this is the text that Lawrence finally corrects in proof-form five months later in New Jersey after he receives two sets of proofs - UK and U.S. - from Seltzer for his final thoughts and corrections. This is his last chance to correct the anomaly of the variant endings. However, the ending on both sets of proofs Lawrence has in front of him in New Jersey is his correct [...cold, dark, inhospitable sea...] one, so he notices nothing amiss, and thus the proofs go off to their respective publishers to be converted into first editions. Unfortunately, however - unbeknown to anyone - the "readers" at Seltzer's printing plant have mistaken a cover-sheet Lawrence attached to the "last page" which he sent to Seltzer in January, with its superscription […end of Kangaroo…], not as the wording on a cover-sheet, but as a terminating direction under some type-written text. So they cut the following (hand-written) 375 words from the printed text, reinstating the original cutting error, thus ensuring that the variant endings are the ones finally published. (Secker's printers do not make the same error - caused by the fact that the U.S. galley-proofs Lawrence corrected had yet to be "read" and checked against the original TS2 text, so giving Seltzer's printers the opportunity to mistake the cover-sheet for the "last page" of text). Hence the U.S. Seltzer edition ends […broken attachments, broken…] (the U.S. "readers" added the "missing" full-stop) while the UK Secker edition adds the final word and punctuation of the sentence, [...heartstrings....], and goes on to Lawrence's intended final words [...It was only four days to New Zealand across a cold, dark, inhospitable sea...].