Contents lists
Updated June 2012
T. E. Lawrence to Jonathan Cape
10.4.23.
Dear Cape
It's a relief to me that there won't be a serialization if or when we think about publication. My present mood is contra... and my present engagement is for seven years, so that I'm independent, financially. The team of artists continue to draw heads for me. John's Hogarth, (now in his Alpine Club Gallery show) is the last and most splendid yet: but the two Spencers are working on two others which may be very good.
Bevan is an educational officer: and I've not met him. There have been a number of Tank Corps books, and his will have to be very good to justify itself.
Yes, I've made wills and things, leaving my book - all I possess now - to my young brother, who has agreed not to publish it unless he's faced with starvation! This is an improbable contingency, for he has £300 a year of his own, and is sober. I suggested to him 1950 as a suitable date to publish!
In these very uncongenial airs I've rather lost interest in the book: indeed I often forget that I wrote it, or acted the affairs of which it treats! With luck and time I'll believe myself to be Pte------ and not an ex-fellow of All Souls!
Thanks for the word about translating. I'd like to make however-few pounds, and it would be nice to play with words again. Squad-drill is a little heavy on the mind.
Yours ever
T. E. Lawrence
| Source: | DG 408 |
| Checked: | jw/ |
| Last revised: | 28 January 2003 |
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