Should you wish to understand the enigmatic and multi-faceted character that made up T.E. Lawrence (or T.E. Shaw, as he became known after 1923), you can hardly do better than read the many letters that he wrote.
There are a vast number of these. TE was a prolific letter writer, he found them a means of expression and of communication with friends and acquaintances whom he might not be able or even wish to meet. I feel sure many wait, yet to be discovered in hidden places, tucked inside books or in old desk drawers. Indeed there are recent examples of letters hiding in both of these locations.
Many of his letters have been published and in more recent years Castle Hill Press (under the expert guidance of the late Jeremy Wilson) has produced scholarly and handsome editions, focusing on the letters to certain correspondents and key themes of his life.
However to obtain a rounded and intimate picture of TE one can do little better than exploring the 583 published in David Garnett’s selection The Letters of T.E. Lawrence first published in 1938. These letters give a fully rounded overview of the whole of TE’s life, treating it in a chronological manner that enables a biographical picture to be formed.
This collection was of course made available some three years after TE’s untimely death on his Brough Superior motorcycle in 1935. The volume was published by Jonathan Cape, who had of course been instrumental in publishing Revolt in the Desert (1927) and Seven Pillars of Wisdom” (1935). As might be expected from Cape at this period, it was a handsome volume, well produced and with the striking typographical dust-wrapper. It was originally to be edited by E.M Forster, but he planned to divide the book into sections of TE’s life dealing with the different interests, his brother A.W. Lawrence did not quite approve of this methodology and David Garnett, scientist, bookseller, publisher and writer took over treating the letters chronologically, making a splendid job of the project. David was eminently suited to the role, being the son of literary reader, Edward Garnett who was a friend and literary mentor of TE. David had himself become a friend of TE and an early reader of his legendary literary projects Seven Pillars and The Mint and himself the author of well received novels.
The volume is not without its typographical errors, two notable ones corrected in later editions, “Baltic” on page 182, corrected to ‘Balkan” and the letter signed “T.E.L” later corrected to ‘T.E.S” on page 495 have become “issue points” for dealers and collectors. In a letter to TE collector Bradfer-Lawrence, David Garnett lamented a number of others.
The Garnett volume of Letters has been hugely influential on students and biographers of TE’s life being at once scholarly and entertaining. This influence extends to all those who have taken an interest and fostered the scholarly research into the man and his significance, be it the desert campaign of WW1 or his important and still underrated work on the RAF boats in the post WW1 period.
This can be illustrated by a volume of the Letters signed by Henry St John Armitage (1924-2004), and dated “Bradford May 1939″. This being the copy from the library of Arabist, TE scholar and diplomat, St John Armitage and indicates his early interest in TE. He was 15 when he signed and dated this volume, but went on in his long life to have a distinguished career, retain his interest and influence in TE circles and speak at a T.E. Lawrence Society Symposium towards the end of his life.
The Letters volume was also passed on by TE’s friends. An example here from his friend, Lt Col. Stewart Francis Newcombe (1878–1956) with whom he first met whilst surveying the Sinai Peninsula in 1914 and retained a life- long friendship, this copy being owned much later by TE scholar and biographer Jeremy Wilson.
No doubt this important volume in the T.E. Lawrence canon will continue to be acknowledged in bibliographies and inspire a host of fresh students.
David Garnett 1979 
David Garnett’s bookplate
