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 his mother

---

[Karachi]

21.2.28

This is only a line. I see from the papers that Eliot, who owns the Revolt in the Desert, appears to have sold its film rights. The company will probably take a year or more to make their film: and then a year or more to show it (films do die, fortunately, soon) so I don't suppose that 1930 will be my return-date, as I'd hoped. It will be a year or so later, perhaps. But it's too soon to start even guessing. There is so much publicity about a film, that I very much regret it.

I hope you are now back in England. There's a thing you might send me, after you get back. Bob could find them at any shop. Some DARWIN razor blades, for a GILLETTE razor. I brought out enough to last me for three years: now I'd better have a reserve: say four dozen more. Pass the request on to Arnie, if it troubles you, or if Bob has gone somewhere.

N.

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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