Recommended Reading And Viewing

The Seven Pillars of Wisdom a triumph (London 1926)

The memoir was published in 1926 by Lawrence as a privately printed subscribers’ edition. With over 200 copies it is rare book and beyond the reach of the general public to read or view its illustrations. However, the United States Library of Congress owns a copy and permits it to be downloaded at no cost. One may obtain their copy at: Seven pillars of wisdom; a triumph. | Library of Congress (loc.gov)

Revolt in the Desert (London 1927)

This book was Lawrence’s abridged version of his 1926 memoir. It was published as a ‘trade’ edition in the United Kingdom and United States, along with a limited edition that featured several color illustrations. He produced it for the sole purpose of paying the expenses he incurred from the publishing of his subscribers’ edition, which in 1926 was £13,500. When the sales met his financial goal he stopped further publication. After Lawrence’s untimely death in 1935 its publication resumed and has remained in print to this day. 

The Seven Pillars of Wisdom a triumph (London 1935)

Lawrence’s death in 1935 led to the simultaneous publication in the United Kingdom and the United States of his 1926 subscribers’ edition. This volume featured some but not all of the illustrations and photographs found in the original and has been in continuous print since 1935. However, subsequent versions produced by different publishers range from no images to the same or different ones as compared to the 1935 version.

The Complete 1922 Seven Pillars of Wisdom The “Oxford” Text (Salisbury 2003)

An important addition to the publication of Lawrence’s memoir was produced by his authorized biographer Jeremy Wilson. He published in 2003 the manuscript that Lawrence finished in 1922 and gave to the Bodleian Library. This manuscript, of which there is only one, served as the text that Lawrence revised for his 1926 subscribers’ edition. The publication by Wilson of the ‘Oxford’ text permits one to compare his 1922 version of the memoir to his subsequent one published in 1926.

The Mint (New York 1955)

Lawrence’s written experience, as an enlisted man in the RAF, was started in late 1922, but was then suspended until 1925 when he returned to it, and was finished in 1928. He chose not to publish it and stipulated that it was not to be published until after his death. Its publication in 1955 completed his memoirs.

The Forest Giant (London 1923)

In 1923 Lawrence asked the publisher Jonathan Cape for an opportunity to translate works from French to English. Cape responded by asking him to translate Le Gigntesque, a novel by Adrien le Corbeau, which he did and it was published as The Forest Giant under his alias: J. H. Ross.

The Odyssey of Homer (Oxford 1991)

Lawrence translated Homer’s Odyssey between late 1928 and the middle of 1931 for the American book designer Bruce Rogers. It was published in 1932 and is considered a masterpiece of 20^th century book design. It was a limited edition of 530 copies, but fortunately for the general public Oxford University Press published it as a trade edition. In addition to translating Homer from Greek into English he wrote an introduction for it that was published under his name of T. E. Shaw.

• Thomas, Lowell. With Lawrence in Arabia (London 1924)
• Graves, Robert. Lawrence and the Arabian Adventure (New York 1928)
• Hart, B. H. Liddell. T. E. Lawrence In Arabia and After (London 1935)

Each of these books is useful to one’s study of Lawrence’s life because they present his life as their authors chose to interpret it. What they share in common is casting his life as an exceptional list of heroic exploits. Thomas developed the themes in his book from those he laid out in his 1919 famous public program: With Allenby in Palestine and Lawrence in Arabia. Graves’s publication was designed to complement Lawrence’s publication of Revolt in the Desert by providing more information about him. Liddell Hart’s book was written for the purpose of advocating for the use of indirect warfare as opposed to the direct form used on the western front in the First World War. All three share the fact that Lawrence to different degrees had an influence on the content of the books, especially the Graves and Liddell Hart biographies.

The Letters of T. E. Lawrence, ed. David Garnett (London 1938)

Three years after Lawrence’s death David Garnett gathered together, edited and published the first collection of his letters.

The Home Letters of T. E. Lawrence and His Brothers, ed. M. R. Lawrence (New York 1964)

Lawrence’s oldest brother Robert added to Garnett’s collection by selecting and editing the letters of not only T. E. Lawrence but those of his brothers.

• Correspondence with Bernard and Charlotte Shaw, Volumes I-IV, ed. J. and N. Wilson (Hants 2000-2009)
• ­­Correspondence with E. M. Forster and F. L. Lucas, Volume V, ed. J. and N. Wilson (Hants 2010)
• ­­More Correspondence with Writers, Volume VI, ed. J. and N. Wilson (Hants 2013)
• ­­Correspondence with Edward and David Garnett Volume VII, ed. J. and N. Wilson (Hants 2016)
• ­­Correspondence with Henry Williamson, Volume IX, ed. J. and N. Wilson (Hants 2000)
• ­­Correspondence with the Political Elite 1922-1935, Volume X, ed. J. and N. Wilson (Hants 2015)

The value of this multi-volume series of letters, edited by Jeremy and Nicole Wilson, is it differs from the collected letters, i.e. Garnett and Brown, in they are organized around his closest friends and confidants.

Lawrence of Arabia The Selected Letters, ed. Malcolm Brown (London 2005)

Malcolm Brown’s edition of Lawrence’s letters includes not only the significant ones in the Garnett collection of 1938 but ones that were unavailable at the time for inclusion in his edition. This volume complements Garnett’s collection of his letters.

Oriental Assembly by T. E. Lawrence, ed. Arnold Lawrence (New York 1940)

This volume is a selection of miscellaneous writings that was edited by his brother Arnold Lawrence. It provides one with several important items such as the suppressed introduction his 1926 memoir; the essays The Changing East, The Evolution of a Revolt; and his On Eric Kennington’s Arab Portraits. It also features for the first time the publication of over 100 of his personal photographs taken by him during the war.

The Essential T. E. Lawrence, ed. David Garnett (London 1951)

This book is both an autobiography and anthology. Garnett produced it by selecting Lawrence’s writings and arranged them in three parts: Archaeology; War and Diplomacy; and The Royal Air Force. If possible one should try to find the 1991 copy for it has an introduction by Malcolm Brown that gives the reader a context for the book.

Evolution of a Revolt Early Postwar Writings of T.E. Lawrence, ed. S. & R. Weintraub (University Park 1968)

This book features several articles written by Lawrence in the early 1920s when he was at the peak of his career as public advocate for a revision of Britain’s Middle-East policies and practices.

E. Lawrence in War and Peace, ed. Malcolm Brown (London 2005)

The core content of this book is Brown’s selection of Lawrence’s wartime dispatches that were published in the Arab Bureau’s Arab Bulletin. Like the Weintraub book he reprints Lawrence’s most significant postwar articles. In all this volume is very useful as it reprints essential documents that give one a supplement to his memoirs.

Lawrence of Arabia’s Secret Dispatches During The Arab Revolt 1915-1919, ed. Fabrizio Bagatti (South Yorkshire 2021)

The focus of this book is solely on Lawrence’s wartime dispatches. It provides one with 118 of them which makes the volume a more complete publication of these fascinating essays by Lawrence that were written for a limited audience from 1915 to 1919.

• E. Lawrence By His Friends, ed. A. W. Lawrence (New York 1937)
• Smith, Clare Sydney. The Golden Reign (London 1940)
• Buchan, John. “T. E. Lawrence”, Memory Hold-the-Door (London 1940)

Arnold Lawrence assembled over 80 essays that were written by those who knew his brother. He organized them into categories that present the remembrances as both a chronology of his life and interests. This book is an essential work as it offers the reader the perceptions of those who knew him and tells us something about each writer as well. John Buchan was not included in the Arnold Lawrence’s anthology but gives his view of Lawrence as a remembrance of him in his Memory Hold-the-Door. Smith’s remembrance, like Buchan’s brings another facet of his personality and interests in the last decade of his life.

O’Brien, Philip. T.E. Lawrence A Bibliography (New Castle 2000)

Philip O’Brien has brought the materials relating to Lawrence together into one comprehensive volume. It is the definitive bibliography on T. E. Lawrence that covers not only the canon of Lawrence’s work but all the literature, film and miscellaneous material about him up to 2000 which makes it an essential reference tool. O’Brien’s study is arranged chronologically. He gives a limited overview of how he has clustered the works but does not attempt to prioritize or recommend them.

Graves, Robert and Hart, B. H. Liddell.

E. Lawrence To His Biographers Robert Graves and Liddell Hart (London 1938)

It consists of one part by his biographer Robert Graves and the other part by his biographer Basil Liddell Hart. The former covers the period from 1920 to 1935 through a narrative about him that uses his letters and notes to questions Graves put to Lawrence while writing his biography. Liddell Hart does the same. This book is a valuable tool that offers subtle insights by the pair into Lawrence as they perceived him at the time.

• Aldington, Richard. Lawrence of Arabia: A Biographical Inquiry (London 1955)
• Knightly, Philip and Simpson, Colin. The Secret Lives of Lawrence of Arabia (London 1969)

Aldington’s biography that was published in the early 1950s is the first treatment of Lawrence that either questioned or attempted to debunk the mythic image of him created by the Thomas, Graves, Hart and subsequent ones written on him. The most startling fact Aldington presented was Lawrence’s parents were not married making him illegitimate. Knightly and Simpson brought to light, following the publication of John Bruce’s story of his relationship with him, that Lawrence had lived his life as masochist.

• Robinson, Edward. Lawrence (Oxford 1935)
• Richards, V. Portrait of T.E. Lawrence the Lawrence of The Seven Pillars of Wisdom (London 1936)
• Williamson, Henry. Genius of Friendship T. E. Lawrence (London 1941)
• Armitage, Flora. The Desert & the Stars (London 1956)
• Nutting, Anthony. Lawrence of Arabia the man and the Motive (London 1961)
• Payne, Robert. Lawrence of Arabia: A Triumph (New York 1962)
• Ocampo, Victoria. 338171, T. E. (London 1963)
• Mousa, Suleiman. TEL An Arab View (Oxford 1966)
• Graves, Richard Perceval. Lawrence of Arabia and his world (New York 1976)
• Mack, John. A Prince of Our Disorder: The Life of T. E. Lawrence (New York 1976)
• Marriott, Paul. The Young Lawrence of Arabia 1888-1910 (Oxford 1977)
• Stewart, Desmond. T.E. Lawrence (London 1977)
• Hyde, H. Montgomery. Solitary in the Ranks (New York 1978)
• Tabachnick, Stephen. T.E. Lawrence (Boston 1978)
• Yardley, Michael. Backing into the Limelight A Biography of T.E. Lawrence (London 1985)
• Wilson, Jeremy. Lawrence of Arabia: The Authorised Biography of T.E. Lawrence (London 1989)
• Brown, Malcolm and Cave, Julia. A Touch of Genius: the Life of T. E. Lawrence (New York 1989)
• Asher, Michael. Lawrence The Uncrowned King of Arabia (New York 1998)
• Orlans, Harold. T.E. Lawrence Biography of a Broken Hero (Jefferson 2002)
• Brown, Malcolm. Lawrence of Arabia the life, the legend (New York 2005)
• Greaves, Adrian. Lawrence of Arabia: Mirage of a Desert War (London 2007)
• Simpson, Andrew. Another Life: Lawrence after Arabia (Stroud 2008)
• James, Lawrence. The Golden Warrior, The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia (New York 2008)
• Barr, James. Setting the Desert on Fire (New York 2008)
• Hulsman, John. To Begin the World Over Again (New York 2009)
• Korda, Michael. Hero: the life and legend of Lawrence of Arabia (New York 2010)
• Anderson, Scott. Lawrence In Arabia (New York 2013)
• Murphy, David. Lawrence of Arabia Leadership-Strategy-Conflict (Oxford 2011)
• Sattin, Anthony. Young Lawrence A Portrait of the Legend as a Young Man (London 2014)
• Kendall, Paul. Lawrence of Arabia Colonel T. E. Lawrence CB DSO Places and Objects of Interest (Yorkshire 2024)
• Fiennes, Ranulph. Lawrence of Arabia My Journey in search of T. E. Lawrence (New York 2024)

This list is a sample of the many biographies published after his death and is listed by year of publication. Some of them treat a limited period of his life such as Marriott’s or Sattin’s narratives of Lawrence’s prewar life. Others cover his entire life.

Three that stand out in this category are John Mack’s A Prince of Our Disorder: The Life of T. E. Lawrence, Jeremy Wilson’s Lawrence of Arabia: The Authorised Biography of T.E. Lawrence and Michael Korda’s Hero: the life and legend of Lawrence of Arabia.

If one chooses to understand Lawrence through the biographies it is advised to acquire and read as many as possible because they vary based on the concerns of the decade when written and by the choices that were made by the writer’s questions and depth of research.

• Weintraub, Stanley. Private Shaw and Public Shaw (New York 1963)
• Myers, Jeffrey. The Wounded Spirit: T. E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom (New York 1973)
• Grosvenor, Charles. The Portraits of T.E. Lawrence (Hillsdale 1975)
• Weintraub, Stanley and Rodelle. Lawrence of Arabia The Literary Impulse (Baton Rouge 1975)
• O’Donnell, Thomas. The Confessions of T. E. Lawrence (Athens 1979)
• The T. E. Lawrence Puzzle, ed. S. Tabachnick, (Athens 1984)
• Richards, Vyvyan. T. E. Lawrence Book Designer (Barnsley1985)
• Thompson, V. M. ‘Not A Suitable Hobby For An Airman’ – T. E. Lawrence as Publisher (Oxford 1986)
• Warde, Robert. T.E. Lawrence A Critical Study (New York 1987)
• Wilson, Jeremy. T.E. Lawrence (London 1988)
• Tabachnick, S. and Matheson, C. Images of Lawrence (London 1988)
• E. Lawrence: Soldier, Writer, Legend, ed. J. Myers (New York 1989)
• Lawrence of Arabia Strange man of Letters, ed. H. Orlans (Cranbury 1993)
• Hodson, Joel. Lawrence of Arabia and American Culture (Westport 1995) Crawford, Fred.
• Richard Aldington and Lawrence of Arabia: A Cautionary Tale (Carbondale and Edwardsville 1998)
• Guillaume, R. and A. An Introduction and Notes Seven Pillars of Wisdom T. E. Lawrence (Oxshott 1998)
• Thom, D. G. Portrait of a Mind-Suicide: A Self-Relational Study of T. E. Lawrence with Constant Reference to Kierkegaard (Chichester 1999)
• The Waking Dream of T. E. Lawrence: essays on his life, literature and legacy, ed. C. Stang (New York 2002)
• Tabachnick, Stephen. Lawrence of Arabia An Encyclopedia (Westport 2004)

This list is a sample of the numerous books that started to appear after the release of David Lean’s film Lawrence of Arabia in 1962. They mark the point when Lawrence became the subject of academic research. Jeffrey Myers, Stephan Tabachnick and Stanley Weintraub illustrate this new type of writing on Lawrence.

These types of studies are valuable complements to the biographies of his life as they delve into specific aspects of his life that are not usually well developed in his biographies.

• Knowles, Richard. Two Superiors: The motorcycling friendship of George Brough & T E Lawrence (Barnsley1985)
• Berton, Joe. T. E. Lawrence and the Arab Revolt (Madrid 2012)
• Johnson-Allen, John. T. E. Lawrence and the Red Sea Patrol (Yorkshire 2015)
• Benson-Gyles, Dick. The Boy in The Mask: The Hidden World of Lawrence of Arabia (Dublin 2016)
• Faulkner, Neil. Lawrence of Arabia’s War (New Haven 2016)
• Jolley, Alison. Lawrence of Arabia’s War Day by Day (United States 2018)
• Walker, Philip. Behind the Lawrence Legend (Oxford 2018)
• Eilers, Charles. A Shy Bird (Barnsley1985)
• Saunders, Nicholas. Desert Insurgency: Archaeology, T. E. Lawrence, and the Arab Revolt (Oxford 2020)
• Tinsley, Lorraine. The Uncrowned King & the Desert Queen (Florence 2023)
• Thompson, George. Seeing Arabia The personal photographs of Lawrence of Arabia (Florence 2024)

In addition to the above titles authored by Society members others who have been previously listed must be recognized. Philip O’Brien, Jeremy Wilson, Malcolm Brown and Fabrizio Bagatti are four of many who are or were members of the Society.

• Rattigan, Terence. Ross (London 2016)
• Brenton, Howard. Lawrence after Arabia (London 2016)
• Lean, David. Lawrence of Arabia (Columbia Pictures 1962)
• Rose Price, Tim. A Dangerous Man: Lawrence After Arabia (ITV 1990)

The entry point for many people into Lawrence’s life story has been David Lean’s 1962 film Lawrence of Arabia. The idea of making a film about him can be traced back to 1930s when Alexander Korda purchased the rights to Revolt in the Desert. Lawrence personally intervened with Korda to ask him not to make it which he honored. But his story was still so compelling that it became the content for Rattigan’s play Ross that premiered in 1960 to be followed by Lean’s film in 1962.