The T. E. Lawrence Affair, 1950–55

Abstract

Long before he thought of writing Pinorman, on 22 June 1950 Aldington told David Garnett that he was making notes towards a biography of T. E. Lawrence. Very quickly, these notes became a stockpile, and just as quickly he realised that a study of Lawrence’s life raised questions which he had not foreseen, and that Lawrence was a highly problematical character. His intention to write a straight forward life story changed as he proceeded, into a quest for evidence. As he accumulated it, the evidence called for checking by both military and scholarly experts and for the eventual publishers, Collins, to have lawyers go through the typescript in minute detail. Publication was delayed for years and Aldington was prevented from quoting copyright materials under the control of the Lawrence family. Instead, he was obliged to paraphrase, which made it considerably more difficult to substantiate his claim that the whole work was carefully documented. He told Kershaw, ‘it is a colossal subject to treat with competence, and most difficult to treat frankly, without being or seeming hostile’.¹