Contents lists
T. E. Lawrence to C. J. Greenwood
Plymouth
12.X.32
Dear Greenwood
Marshall has just sent me on your letter about my R.A.F. notes. It is very good of you to have taken this trouble. I can't say, of course, what is to become of this MS. The R.A.F. do not want it read, much less published. My notion was to print perhaps a dozen copies, none for sale, only to preserve what I think has a little merit as a picture of the Air Force of ten years ago. 'Services of the Crown' are so seldom created, that this view of the sucking years of the R.A.F. should have some technical interest.
Meanwhile, of course, I cannot say. Peter Davies estimated much the same, some years ago. My difficulty is not the money, but Air-Staff permission.
If anything happens I will tell you. I hope your publishing goes not too hopelessly: that is all any publishers in England today expects. What a season you chose for your start!
Have just read Hanley's Ebb and Flood. A very fine effort. He has definitely enlarged his range, in it. There are good books coming from him. I hope his head keeps above water, too.
Yours,
T. E. Shaw
| Source: | DG |
| Checked: | jw/ |
| Last revised: | 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