T. E. Lawrence

Contents lists

1888-1910

1911

1912

1913

1914

1915-16

1917-18

1919-20

1921

1922

1923

1924

1925

1926

1927

1928

1929

1930

1931

1932

1933

1934

1935

Updated June 2012

T. E. Lawrence to C. M. Doughty

---

All Souls College,
Oxford.

Nov. 7. 1920.

Dear Mr. Doughty,

Here is the proof back again, inked as you suggested, except on p. xxxv, where I have not put in 'Ottoman'. I've taken out the past participle, which broadens the sense. In some other places I have not used your actual word, mainly for the printer's sake, to lessen the disturbance of type. It is very good of you to have changed so little.

I quite understand your saying about your neglect of Arabia Deserta: and I'm entirely of your opinion that it is less than Dawn in Britain, Mansoul, and Adam: but it is easier than these others, and so it's the best wedge to drive into the public. They will all read Arabia Deserta, and those who are seized with it will go on to the poems afterwards. I advise those who ask me, to read Adam second, Mansoul third, and then Dawn - because Dawn has to be read whole, and it takes courage to start so long a book. Those who have taken my advice have all become partisans of yours: and the clan is getting a large one. Still, it may be years yet before you sweep the board, and meanwhile the best weapon is Arabia. It's exceedingly good to have it out again, and as fifty copies have been sold already, it looks as though it might sell fairly quickly. I hope so very much, because then we'll have a third, and cheap edition.

Yours sincerely

T. E. Lawrence

Note: Lawrence is responding to Doughty's suggested amendments to his introduction to a new edition of Travels in Arabia Deserta, published in January 1921 by Jonathan Cape and the Medici Society.

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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