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 Bertram Thomas

---

Myrtle Cottage,
Hythe,
Southampton

21. XI. 31

Dear BT,

Will this reach you, or are you in the States? Both perhaps. I am on Southampton Water (nearly all day and part of the night, often) testing a new marine engine for the R.A.F. This note is to report my failure to make any foreword for your Arabia.¹ If you, or it, had been a con-rod, how technically I should have balanced you and summed up - whereas all I feel is a great release and relief, at knowing that your book is good enough. Your journey is told as it deserves: no, hardly that perhaps, or it would be the best travel book ever yet. It is exceedingly well told and will live for generations. You are a fortunate man. The Foreign Office is displeased with you. You are doubly fortunate and distinguished. I'm getting envious.   

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