T.E. Lawrence (1888-1935) remains highly controversial. The illegitimate son of an Irish baronet, he gained fame as a liaison officer to the Arab Revolt against Turkey during World War I, helped shape the post-war Middle East, and attempted to escape into the anonymity of the Tank Corps and Royal Air Force before dying in a motorcycle accident in May 1935. Questions about his historical importance, personality, and honesty remain, only fueled by his memoir Seven Pillars of Wisdom (London: Jonathan Cape, 1935).
This article examines the trends in Lawrence biographies, looking at many of Lawrence's major biographies from 1924 to the present.
The Hagiographers
The first biography of Lawrence was Lowell Thomas's With Lawrence of Arabia (New York: Garden City Publishing, 1924). A Chicago journalist, Thomas met Lawrence briefly during World War I, and in 1919 created an illustrated slide lecture, With Allenby in Palestine and Lawrence in Arabia, a huge success in both America and Great Britain. Thomas presented a sensationalized depiction of the Arab Revolt, calling Lawrence "the George Washington of Arabia" (Korda 480). Though Lawrence initially cooperated with Thomas, he eventually grew disgusted with the "vulgar man."
However, Lawrence did little to dissuade his growing reputation, commissioning two biographies. Robert Graves wrote Lawrence and the Arabs (London: Cape, 1927), closely paraphrasing Lawrence's Seven Pillars. Historian Basil Liddell Hart wrote "T.E. Lawrence": In Arabia and After (London: Cape, 1934), analyzing Lawrence's campaigns from a military perspective.
Shortly after Lawrence's death, his brother Arnold (A.W.) published T.E. Lawrence by His Friends (London: Cape, 1937), a collection of reminiscences by Lawrence's family and friends. Several of Lawrence's friends published their own biographies: Vyvyan Richards's Portrait of T.E. Lawrence (London: Cape, 1936) and Claire Sydney Smith's The Golden Reign (London: Cassell, 1940), furthered the view of Lawrence as a great man and romantic hero.
The Skeptics
Richard Aldington's Lawrence of Arabia: A Biographical Enquiry (New York: Regnery, 1955) was a bomb shell. A poet and novelist, Aldington set out to write a conventional biography, but felt Lawrence did not live up to his romantic image.
Aldington first revealed Lawrence's illegitimacy. Comparing Lawrence's writings with those of contemporaries, Aldington depicted Lawrence as a lying egomaniac. Aldington also disparaged the Arab Revolt, and attacked Lawrence for supporting it. Finally, he alleged that Lawrence was a homosexual, drawing on Lawrence's pre-war relationship with the Arab Selim Ahmed (Dahoum), and his writings in Seven Pillars. Aldington ended by criticizing Lawrence's supporters: "Lawrence was the appropriate hero for his class and epoch" (388).
Lawrence's associates subjected Aldington to extreme criticism, attacking perceived inaccuracy and his impropriety regarding Lawrence's illegitimacy. However, his biography had a major impact. As Stephen E. Tabachnick notes, "Almost all Lawrence biographies of the period following Aldington dwelt on his alleged self-glorification, homosexuality and sado-masochism" (52).
Anthony Nutting's Lawrence of Arabia: The Man and the Motive (London: Hollis and Carter, 1961) accepted many of Aldington's analyses, but still viewed Lawrence in a favorable light. Suleiman Mousa's T.E. Lawrence: An Arab View (London: Oxford University Press, 1966) argued that Lawrence exaggerated his own importance in the Arab Revolt. Mousa also claimed that Lawrence lied about the Deraa incident, where Lawrence was allegedly captured and raped by Turkish soldiers in November 1917.
Synthesis?
In 1969, Britain's Public Records Office released heretofore-secret documents on World War I, including those pertaining to the Arab Revolt. This allowed for a more balanced debate about Lawrence, verifying much of his account while leaving other aspects unresolved.
Journalists Philip Knightley and Colin Simpson were the first to utilize these documents in The Secret Lives of Lawrence of Arabia (London: Nelson, 1969). Knightley and Simpson also employed the new testimony of John Bruce, a Tanks Corps friend of Lawrence who ritually flogged Lawrence. However, the authors' view of Lawrence as an intelligence agent and committed imperialist remains controversial.
Harvard psychologist John E. Mack published his Pulitzer Prize-winning A Prince of Our Disorder: The Life of T.E. Lawrence in 1976. Mack found in Lawrence "one of the most moving personal sagas I've ever encountered" (459), arguing that Lawrence was more honest and less self-congratulatory than the Aldington school suggested. Mack viewed Lawrence as an extremely complicated and tortured man.
Desmond Stewart's T.E. Lawrence (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1977) leaned on the psychosexual angle, speculating about Lawrence's supposed homosexual liaisons and theorizing that Lawrence was murdered. H. Montgomery Hyde's Solitary in the Ranks: Lawrence of Arabia as Airman and Private Soldier (London: Constable, 1977) rebuts most of Stewart's arguments.
Recent Works
Jeremy Wilson's Lawrence of Arabia: The Authorized Biography of T.E. Lawrence (New York: Atheneum, 1990) provided the most detailed biography of Lawrence to date. Wilson addressed most of the critical charges against Lawrence, depicting him as a flawed but ultimately great man.
Two critical volumes appeared in the 1990s. Lawrence James's The Golden Warrior: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia (London: Weidenfeld, 1990) focused on Lawrence's sexuality. Michael Asher's Lawrence: The Uncrowned King of Arabia (Woodstock: Overlook Press, 1999) took a unique approach. Asher, a former military officer, retraced Lawrence's journeys in Arabia and concluded Lawrence lied about many of his exploits.
James Barr's Setting the Desert on Fire: T.E. Lawrence and Britain's Secret War in Arabia (New York: W.W. Norton, 2008) reflected skeptical conclusions about Lawrence - that he lied about Deraa and was a homosexual - but depicted him as a heroic and skilled commander.
The most recent biography is Michael Korda's Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia, published in November 2010. Korda views Lawrence as someone who "made himself a hero by design, and did it so successfully that he became the victim of his own fame" (xvii).
Works Cited
Aldington, Richard. Lawrence of Arabia: A Biographical Enquiry. Chicago: Regnery, 1955.
Korda, Michael. Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia. New York: HarperCollins, 2010.
Mack. John E. A Prince of Our Disorder: The Life of T.E. Lawrence. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1976.
Tabachnick, Stephen E., and Christopher Matheson. Images of Lawrence. London: Jonathan Cape, 1988.
Christopher Saunders - I am a History major at the University of Pittsburgh, with a minor in Film Studies and a Public and Professional Writing Certificate. I am ...
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