Thomas Edward Lawrence

Thomas Edward Lawrence, also known as Lawrence of Arabia (August 16, 1888 in Tremadoc, Wales - May 19, 1935 in Bovington, Dorset), was educated as an archaeologist and historian. After the outbreak of the Great War, he became an intelligence officer and a liaison officer with the Arab Revolt from 1916-1918. From 1921 to 1922 he was a member of the Colonial Office and instrumental in the founding of the Arab states in the Middle East. Though ending the War as a Colonel, he served from 1922 to 1935 as a soldier in the Tank Corps and the Royal Air Force. Despite his awareness of his extraordinary personality and his self-confidence, he ardently wished to be considered not as a war hero, or even an adventurer, but as an author.

Bibliography

Bibliographies, reference works, exhibition 'catalogues', and short introductions

• Brown, Malcolm. T. E. Lawrence. London: British Library, 2003. (A good short introduction.)
• Brown, Malcolm. Lawrence of Arabia: The Life, the Legend. London: Thames and Hudson, 2005. (Companion volume to the exhibition at the Imperial War Museum in London, 2005-06; shorter than Wilsons volume for the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in 1988, and 'easier' to read; also many illustrations.)
• O’Brien, Philip M. T. E. Lawrence: A Bibliography. 1988. 2nd revised and expanded edition. New Castle, Delaware: Oak Knoll Press, 2000. (A huge work; essential.)
• Tabachnick, Stephen E. Lawrence of Arabia: An Encyclopedia. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2004. xxxviii + 248 pp. (Short articles with further reading on almost any person and subject of importance to Lawrence's life.)
• Wilson, Jeremy. T. E. Lawrence. London: National Portrait Gallery, 1988. (A biography in its own right; important beacuse of its excellent illustrations and its maps; very rich in information.)
• Wilson, Jeremy. Lawrence of Arabia. Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton, 1998. (A very short biography by the unquestioned Lawrence-expert and editor of his works and letters.)

T. E. Lawrence's most important writings

• With C. Leonard Wolley. The Wilderness of Zin: Archeological Report. With a chapter on the Greek inscriptions by M[arcus]. N. Tod. Palestine Exploration Fund, Annual, 3. London: Off. of the Fund, 1915. New edition, Preface by Jonathan Tubb, introduction by Sam T. Moorhead. London: Stacey International, 2003.
• Revolt in the Desert. London: Jonathan Cape / New York: George H. Doran, 1927. (Lawrence's abridgement of the Seven Pillars.)
• Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph. [First privately printed in 1926.] London: Jonathan Cape, 1935. (Many reprints.) Still available at Penguin Books.
• Crusader Castles. London: The Golden Cockerel Press, 1936. (The best edition by Denys Pringle [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988]).
• Secret Despatches from Arabia. Ed. by Arnold W. Lawrence. London: Golden Cockerel Press, 1939. New edition, Secret Despatches from Arabia and Other Writings. Ed. and introduced by Malcolm Brown. London: Bellew Publishing, 1991. Best edition, T. E. Lawrence in War and Peace. Edited by Malcolm Brown. Greenhill Books, 2005.
• Oriental Assembly. With photographs by the author. Ed. by Arnold W. Lawrence. London: Williams and Norgate, 1939. (Includes Lawrence's diary of his tour in 1911, which he undertook after the end of the excavation season; also the first chapter of the Seven Pillars, which remained unpublished in 1935.) Facsimile edition with new introduction by Malcolm Brown. London: Imperial War Museum, 1991.
• The Mint [: A Day-Book of the R.A.F. Depot between August and December 1922 with Later Notes by 352087 A/c Ross.] London: Jonathan Cape, 1955. (Published posthumously; the first edition of the unexpurgated text was published in London by Jonathan Cape, 1973. Reprinted)
• Evolution of a Revolt. Ed. by Stanley and Rodelle Weintraub. University Park, Pa.: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1968. (Good, but incomplete collection of Lawrence's post-war writings.)
• Wilson, Jeremy, ed. Minorities. Preface by C. Day Lewis. London: Jonathan Cape, 1971. (Lawrence's collection of his favorite poetry.)
• Lawrence of Arabia, Strange Man of Letters. Ed. By Harold Orlans. Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1993. (Letters, reviews and literary writings.)
• The Complete 1922 Seven Pillars of Wisdom: The ‘Oxford’ text. Edited by Jeremy and Nicole Wilson. 1997. Fordingbridge, Hampshire: J. and N. Wilson, 2004.

Lawrence's translations

• Corbeau, Adrien le. The Forest Giant. Translated by J. H. Ross [i.e. T. E. Lawrence]. London: Jonathan Cape, 1924. [The American edition was published in New York: Harper and Brothers, 1924.] London: Jonathan Cape, 1935. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Doran, 1936.
• Homer. The Odyssey. Newly translated into English Prose by T. E. Lawrence. New York: Oxford University Press, 1932. [The British edition was published in 1935.] Translated from the Greek by T. E. Shaw. With an Introduction by Sir Maurice Bowra. London: Oxford University Press, 1955. With an introduction by Bernard M. W. Knox. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.

Important letter editions

• T. E. Lawrence to His Biographer, Robert Graves: Information about Himself, in the Form of Letters, Notes and Answers to Questions, Edited with a Critical Commentary [by Robert Graves]. London: Faber and Faber, 1938.
• T. E. Lawrence to His Biographer, Liddell Hart: Information about Himself, in the Form of Letters, Notes, Answers to Questions and Conversations. [Edited by Basil H. Liddell Hart.] London: Faber and Faber, 1938.
  • (Both editions in one book reprinted, with original paging and an index:] T. E. Lawrence to His Biographers Robert Graves and Liddell Hart. London: Cassell 1963.
• The Letters of T. E. Lawrence. Edited by David Garnett. London: Jonathan Cape, 1938. [Reprint edition:] With a Foreword by Captain B. H. Liddell Hart. London: Spring Books, 1964.
• Shaw-Ede: T. E. Lawrence’s Letters to H. S. Ede, 1927-1935. Edited, with a Foreword and a Running Commentary by Harold Stanley Ede. London: Golden Cockerel Press, 1942.
• The Home Letters of T. E. Lawrence and His Brothers. [Edited by M. R. Lawrence.] Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1954. (Important for the early years from 1906 to 1918; some expurgations by the editor, i.e. Lawrence's oldest brother.)
• Lawrence, Arnold W., ed. Letters to T. E. Lawrence. London: Jonathan Cape, 1962.
• Letters from T. E. Lawrence to E. T. Leeds. Edited by Jeremy Wilson. Andoversford: Whittington Press, 1988.
• The Letters of T. E. Lawrence. Selected and edited by Malcolm Brown. London: Dent, 1988. Corrected edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. (A very good one-volume edition, supplements Garnett's one.)
• The Correspondence with Henry Williamson. Edited by Peter Wilson. Fordingbridge: Castle Hill Press, 2000.
• Correspondence with Bernard and Charlotte Shaw, 1922-1926. [T. E. Lawrence, Letters, volume I] Edited by Jeremy and Nicole Wilson. Fordingbridge: Castle Hill Press, 2000.
• Correspondence with Bernard and Charlotte Shaw, 1927. [T. E. Lawrence, Letters, volume II] Edited by Jeremy and Nicole Wilson. Fordingbridge: Castle Hill Press, 2003.

Biographies and special studies

• Aldington, Richard. Lawrence of Arabia: A Biographical Enquiry. London: Collins, 1955. With an introduction by Christopher Sykes. London: Collins, 1969. (One of the most contemptuous biographies ever written; as such it indicates the elusiveness of Lawrence and reveals Aldington's disapproval of him.)
• Brown, Malcolm, and Julia Cave. A Touch of Genius: The Life of T. E. Lawrence. London: Dent, 1988. New York: Paragon House, 1989.
• Hyde, H[arford] Montgomery. Solitary in the Ranks: Lawrence of Arabia as Airman and Private Soldier. London: Constable, 1977.
• James, Lawrence. The Golden Warrior: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1990. Revised edition, London: Abacus, 1995. excerpt and text search
• Liddell Hart, Basil Henry. "T. E. Lawrence" in Arabia and After. London: Jonathan Cape, 1934. (By a leading military historian. The American edition was published with the title Colonel Lawrence: The Man Behind the Legend. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1934.) excerpt and text search; full text online

Online Links

• One of the best web-pages on any well-known person are probably those by Lawrence-biographer Jeremy Wilson: indispensable even for those who already know a lot about Lawrence: telawrence.info, telawrence.net, and telawrencestudies.org
• The T. E. Lawrence Society