Contents lists
Updated June 2012
T. E. Lawrence to B. H. Liddell Hart
13
B'ham St.,
S'ton
14.VI.34
I was in London for a few hours yesterday: with Eliot and two Bow Street experts we interviewed [name omitted], my imposure, and persuaded him that he was not me. To my relief, he agreed at once. Had he stuck to his statements I should have begun to question myself.
I owe you many thanks for putting me on his track. He was a little worm of a man. The game has been going on for some time, and has extended from the Zoo to Ward Lock, the publishers. Comically enough, he has been under observation as a case by the specialists of a mental institution, still under my former name. We arranged for him to write to his various victims, and explain that there had been a personation. I am not flattered at the thought that he got away with it successfully. An obviously feeble creature with the wrinkling face of a chimpanzee.
I did not feel like London, so came back here at once afterwards. We start for Bridlington (four armoured boats) in a few days.
The photographs are, as you say, excellent beyond the wont of such things. Mrs. L.H. is flattered. You and I get off about par. Very good. I am sending one to China as proof of my health!
I cannot think of aught else to tell you - oh yes: I haven't seen that angry review of my Odyssey. Do send it; if it's amusing. About time somebody stood up for Homer. I've wanted to do it myself.
| Source: | DG 810 |
| Checked: | mv/ |
| Last revised: | 7 March 2006 |
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