Contents lists
Updated June 2012
T. E. Lawrence to his family
Cairo
19 October 1915
Another empty letter: I really don't know what to write about: there hasn't as a matter of fact, been anything to write about for months. No. I'll send you a copy of my new map of Gallipoli. It's for sale here, and probably the W.O. will publish it at home: but not for a little time, as they have to make the plates by photography. There are 12 printings, and they have to not been all very good.
Woolley is beginning to walk about again: on crutches that is. He has been a long time ill: it was a compound fracture. Many thanks for the book by Garnett. I wonder what Arnie thought of it? I don't think I require anything for the winter:- except more clothes which I will get here.
The Near East is all sitting quiet, watching affairs in Salonika: when that is concluded, it will all start in again. There is going to be rather a busy winter in the Levant. I am pleased on the whole with things. They have gone against us so far that our govt. has become more reasonable, and the final settlement out here, though it will take long, will I think, be very satisfactory. We have to thank our failures for that: and to me, they are worth it.
N.
| Source: | HL 310 |
| Checked: | jw/ |
| Last revised: | 1 January 2006 |
T. E. Lawrence chronology
1888 16 August: born at Tremadoc, Wales
1896-1907: City of Oxford High School for Boys
1907-9: Jesus College, Oxford, B.A., 1st Class Hons, 1909
1910-14: Magdalen College, Oxford (Senior Demy), while working at the British Museum's excavations at Carchemish
1915-16: Military Intelligence Dept, Cairo
1916-18: Liaison Officer with the Arab Revolt
1919: Attended the Paris Peace Conference
1919-22: wrote Seven Pillars of Wisdom
1921-2: Adviser on Arab Affairs to Winston Churchill at the Colonial Office
1922 August: Enlisted in the Ranks of the RAF
1923 January: discharged from the RAF
1923 March: enlisted in the Tank Corps
1923: translated a French novel, The Forest Giant
1924-6: prepared the subscribers' abridgement of Seven Pillars of Wisdom
1927-8: stationed at Karachi, then Miranshah
1927 March: Revolt in the Desert, an abridgement of Seven Pillars, published
1928: completed The Mint, began translating Homer's Odyssey
1929-33: stationed at Plymouth
1931: started working on RAF boats
1932: his translation of the Odyssey published
1933-5: attached to MAEE, Felixstowe
1935 February: retired from the RAF
1935 19 May: died from injuries received in a motor-cycle crash on 13 May
1935 21 May: buried at Moreton, Dorset