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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[Karachi]

16. 2. 28

Dear Mrs. Hardy,

I'm afraid I wrote you a very poor letter, the day I heard that T.H. was gone. But just then the news struck me almost as a triumph. He had kept it up to the very end: and was through with an existence he had not highly valued. It may be rest, afterwards: whereas for you I could only see present sorrow, and a sense of want. So I was sorrier for you than for myself: indeed hardly sorry for my own loss, at all.

Since then of course I've been reading The Dynasts, and I can feel that there is a very great thing gone from my reach. T.H. was the most honourable stopping place I've ever found, and I shall miss him more and more. I wonder if you will be like that: or if time will make the being alone easier for you.

Yours ever

T E Shaw

Mrs. Shaw, who was at the Abbey, sent me a wonderful account of it. I expect you saw and heard nothing. These bodies of ours are very tiring silly things.

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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