SEVEN PILLARS OF WISDOM. A TRIUMPH.

T. E. Lawrence.

Published by Publication Date: 1935

1935, London, Jonathan Cape, first trade edition, 4to, pp672, black and white illustrations and folding maps, tan cloth, gilt lettering. Lawrence, Thomas Edward [known as Lawrence of Arabia] (1888?Äì1935), intelligence officer and author, was born on 16 August 1888. His parents indulged his passions. In the summers of 1907 and 1908 they provided the wherewithal for him to undertake extended bicycle tours of France in search of castles which he measured and photographed. His interest in medieval military architecture impelled him towards the crusades and in summer 1909 he proceeded through Lebanon and Syria recording the still little known castles there. His findings formed the basis of a BA dissertation which substantially contributed to his first in July 1910. During all his excursions he wrote home regularly with vivid impressions of what he had seen. Before graduating Lawrence came to the attention of Dr D. G. Hogarth, keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, who had encouraged his antiquarian pursuits. Through Hogarth's patronage Lawrence secured an award from Magdalen College and a position on the British Museum's excavations at Carchemish in Syria. He worked there between 1911 and early 1914. As well as supervising the uncovering and cataloguing of Hittite artefacts Lawrence became immersed in the life of a turbulent region. According to his letters home he acted as a sort of consul, arbitrating disputes among Arabs and Kurds and threw himself into their intermittent squabbles with German engineers, then supervising the construction of the Berlin to Baghdad railway. As well as playing the Hentyesque Englishman, Lawrence cultivated an intimate friendship with an Arab youth, Dahoum, whose natural intelligence impressed him and qualified him for tutelage. Lawrence's enchantment with Dahoum helped convince him of the Arabs' capacity for regeneration, but on their own terms and without repudiating their traditions and culture. What he had seen in Lebanon made Lawrence hostile towards those Arabs who looked to the West for salvation and absorbed European, particularly French, values. Likewise, he despised the far-reaching modernizing projects of the Young Turks, who then controlled the Ottoman empire, a contempt which developed into a passionate loathing during the war. For him, Dahoum represented the simple purity of the Arab at ease with his surroundings and culture. Lawrence brought with him a knowledge of the Arab language and world based upon experience. It had also shaped his political outlook which was deeply conservative: he wanted the Arabs to secure independence without losing their historic identity and traditions. From December 1914 to October 1918 Lawrence was intimately involved in collecting and assessing intelligence and in shaping strategy and policy in the Middle East. His academic training fitted him for tasks which he performed diligently and well. As an intellectual he had opportunities to promote his private convictions, particularly on the post-war political future of the Middle East. His sympathies made him susceptible to a Francophobic circle in Cairo, which included his own commanding officer, Colonel Gilbert Clayton, Sir Henry McMahon, and Sir Reginald Wingate, whose objective was to limit as far possible the extension of French power in the region. Lawrence had taken part in the preliminary planning of the Arab uprising and, in October 1916, was ordered to Jiddah to assess the military situation. What followed is recorded in Seven Pillars of Wisdom, a personal, emotional narrative of the Arab revolt in which Lawrence reveals how by sheer willpower he made history. It was a testimony to his vision and persistence and a fulfilment of his desire to write an epic which might stand comparison in scale and linguistic elegance with his beloved Morte d'Arthur and C. M. Doughty's Arabia Deserta. Subtitled 'A triumph', its climax is the Arab liberation of Damascus, a victory which successfully concludes a gruelling ca. Seller Inventory # 01972

Bibliographic Details

Title: SEVEN PILLARS OF WISDOM. A TRIUMPH.
Publication Date: 1935
Condition: A fine copy.