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 his mother

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Semiramis Hotel
Cairo

March 20, 1921

We got here about a fortnight ago: and it has been one of the longest fortnights I ever lived: started about March 3, and went via Marseilles and Alexandria. Eight days out.

Here we live in a marble and bronze hotel, very expensive and luxurious: horrible place: makes me Bolshevik. Everybody Middle East is here, except Joyce and Hogarth. We have done a lot of work, which is almost finished. Day after tomorrow we go to Jerusalem for a week: after that don't know: perhaps home: perhaps I return to Egypt for a further fortnight.

Kennington has gone to Damascus. Can't tell you anything else. Have seen Allenby several times, he's very fit: Kennington drew him, and Ironside and me: wanted to draw Gertrude, but hadn't time.

We're a very happy family: agreed upon everything important: and the trifles arc laughed at.

N.

Hope Arnie is better.

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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