T.E. Lawrence (1888-1935) British, Seven Pillars of Wisdom 1935 Edition. Great condition for its age, printed the year of Lawrence's death. 

Size: 8 x 10 1/4 x 2 1/8 in. 

#3099 #7 . 

Thomas Edward Lawrence was born in 1888 in Wales to Sarah Junner, a governess for Thomas Chapman, 7th Baronet, who left his wife and family in Ireland to cohabit with her. In 1896 they moved to Oxford, where Thomas attended the High School for Boys and studied history at Jesus College. His parents never married, but lived under the name Lawrence to avoid scandal, and the whole family referred to him as “Ned” throughout his childhood. Acutely aware of his origins at a young age, he went by several names in his teens and twenties while the family traveled extensively, eventually settling on his first two initials for most of his writings and correspondence. Between 1910 and 1914 he worked as an archaeologist for the British Museum, primarily in Ottoman-controlled Syria. He volunteered for the British Army at the outbreak of World War I, and was stationed at the Arab Bureau Intelligence Unit in Egypt. In 1916 he traveled through the Middle East on numerous missions and became involved with the Arab Revolt, supporting the Arab Kingdom of Hejaz in a war of independence against the Ottomans. He became obsessed with Arab independence, seeing it as the only possible way to avoid further conflicts in the future. When captured in disguise while reconnoitering the strategically crucial city of Dera’a in late 1917, a violent assault at the hands of the Ottomans caused him physical and psychological damage from which he never fully recovered. Along with Emir Faisal he was pivotal in the capture of Damascus at the end of the Sanai and Palestine campaign in 1918. For this he was offered a knighthood by King George V, but declined it, later writing “For my work on the Arab front I had determined to accept nothing. The cabinet raised the Arabs to fight for us by definite promises of self-government afterwards… In this hope they performed some fine things but, of course, instead of being proud of what we did together, I was continually and bitterly ashamed.” In 1919 the American writer Lowell Thomas went to Jerusalem where he met Lawrence, producing a stage presentation with him entitled “With Allenby in Palestine” which included a lecture, dancing, and music and depicted the Middle East as exotic, mysterious, sensuous, and violent, which Lawrence came to regret. After World War I he joined the British Foreign Office, spending four years as the primary liaison between Faisal and the British government. Faisal’s rule as king, however, came to an abrupt end in 1920 after the battle of Maysaloun, when the French Forces of General Henri Gouraud took control of Damascus, destroying Lawrence’s dream of an independent Arabia. Along with Gertrude Bell and Percy Cox, he was one of three “Orientalists” who Churchill selected to determine the internal boundaries of British mandates, and the experience was a miserable and grueling one, leaving none of the parties fully satisfied. In 1922 he retreated from public life, spending most of his time serving in the Royal Air Force under the name John Hume Ross. In 1926 he published “Seven Pillars of Wisdom,” an autobiographical account of his participation in the Arab Revolt that became an immediate best-seller. The novel, combined with sensationalized news reports and many books in Arabic that he translated, built him into a living legend on multiple continents, and earned him international fame as “Lawrence of Arabia,” a title used for the 1962 film based on his wartime activities. On May 13th, 1935, Lawrence was fatally injured in an accident on his motorcycle in Dorset, just two months after leaving military service. He died six days later of head trauma, and the incident eventually led to the requirement of helmets for military motorcyclists.