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 Mrs. Thomas Hardy

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Clouds Hill
Moreton

16.VI.24.

Dear Mrs. Hardy,

E.M. Forster is coming to my cottage on Friday, to stay till Monday or Tuesday. Probably it is out of pity, to cheer me up. He would be shocked to know that I am pitying him, or rather his sojourn among the beetles and the fallen rhododendron-bloom.

Russell, Palmer and I will go up in turn to keep him company:- but we seem slender fare for a real novelist. So I wondered if you and Mr. Hardy could do anything. Of course it depends on your engagements - but if they are light, and if you feel inclined, and if it is good enough weather to tempt Mr. Hardy abroad, then tea at Clouds Hill on either Saturday or Sunday would be good for E.M.F. and a great honour and dignity for the house. It could perhaps be worked in with a visit to Oakers' Wood (if one is due): however anyway, there it is as a suggestion

The country is beautiful just now.

Yours sincerely

T. E. Shaw

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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