Contents lists
Updated June 2012
T. E. Lawrence to Edward Garnett
16.12.23.
I enclose (for return) Sassoon's letter. Such expressions of pleasure it's hardly decent to hand about.
He likes the chapters in which I ramble round among the cobwebs of my own mind - those you wanted cut! Quaint, isn't it? He also likes others, which you praised.
That's one infuriation of letters, of all artistic effort... their lack of an absolute. It was my first grumble to you.
It's mad of Lane to pay for my profound introduction... and I'll write it if I can, and confess to you if I can't. There's one good thing about cheques... they are delicate things, quick to disappear if you feel them unearned.
Thanks for the two books (not read yet, but what can you expect? I'm passing a particularly bad time just now: a sort of sentient tennis-ball....) can I have the reprinted pamphlets?
No please, no literary studies of anyone. I'm unfitted by my present for such.
Dead Souls was very good. I read an edition of it some while ago.
This is a 'duty' letter, evoked by thankfulness for your books, and written with one eye on your letter. So no more of it. I'm not in the mood.
T.E.
Address now of everything: Clouds Hill, Moreton, Dorset. I've agreed to revise and print 100 copies of the complete Seven Pillars, with illustrations, if so many subscribers at 30 guineas can be found to meet the estimated bills of £3,100. Am I mad? Please tell Cape.
L.
Note. The following spring Lawrence wrote an introduction to The Twilight of the Gods and Other Tales by Richard Garnett, Edward Garnett's father. It was published by John Lane in 1924.
| Source: | DG 443-4 |
| Checked: | jw/ |
| Last revised: | 28 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