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 R. V. Buxton

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Clouds Hill
Moreton
Dorset

29.VIII.24.

Dear Robin,

I don't like the lady's manner: will you please return her cheques (or replace them by a draft from the special account), with a polite note, that it is my hope to prevent her a double disappointment, since both the manner and matter of the book are, in my opinion, too frivolous for her commendation?

Cuthbert Headlam has written asking for a copy. I've replied begging him to consider seriously if his bank balance can't be better employed than acquiring luxury books. He's a nice creature, and must have one if he insists.

The printing is moving, Oh so slowly: but it moves, and such things gather momentum: it's the first page which costs... about £400 isn't it? However: if necessary we will sell 120 copies. I'm printing 200, so that there will be a powerful margin.

Did I tell you? Doubleday offers to do American edition (necessary for copyright reasons) for 1002 dollars. That's cheap. I'll try, by selling a copy there, to make it pay for itself. Eight copies perhaps in all must be printed in U.S.A. Doubleday will probably want two, Congress Library two: and that leaves four for sale. I'd like to fix 'em at 10,000 dollars each, so that the edition would remain, unexhausted, on offer in the firm's catalogue!

Yours

T.E.S.

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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