1929-35
We are currently editing the forth (and final) volume in the 1,000-page Castle Hill Press edition of T. E. Lawrence’s Correspondence with Bernard and Charlotte Shaw. This covers the period from January 1929, when Lawrence returned to England after a two-year posting in India, up until his death in May 1935.
The most striking thing about this volume is the change in tone in Lawrence’s letters. That reflects what was, in reality, a radical change in his lifestyle and mood.
By the end of 1926 he was through the worst of the depression that had afflicted him in the early 1920s. Completing the subscription edition of Seven Pillars had released him from his war memories. Yet he had gone to India at the end of 1926 uncertain about the success of his subscription edition, and apprehensive about the critical reception of its public abridgement, Revolt in the Desert, published in March 1927.
In the event, both books earned high praise. Encouraged, Lawrence had completed The Mint. He had also accepted a commission for a highly-paid translation of Homer’s Odyssey. Partners in the project were Bruce Rogers, one of the world’s best-known typographers and book-designers, and Emery Walker, father-figure of the British fine-press movement. When Lawrence had left England in December 1926, his status rested on his fame as ‘Lawrence of Arabia’. He returned home in 1929 an established writer.
His life was no longer confined to an RAF station thousands of miles from his friends. He was again riding a Brough Superior motor-cycle. He could travel, visit people and places, make plans for improving his cottage at Clouds Hill….
No less important was the development of his RAF work. In India his role had become increasingly responsible and individual. Back in England the process continued. In 1932 he joined a team committed to developing high-speed motor-boats for the RAF. They did not know it, but their work would make possible the Air Sea Rescue service that helped save thousands of lives during WWII.
Jeremy Wilson
(Drawn from a posting on the news page of the Castle Hill Press website)