Lawrence of Arabia (The Man and the Motive)

More than a quarter of a century after his death the enigma of T. E. Lawrence persists. The success of Terence Rattigan’s Ross, and the Sam Spiegel film for which Anthony Nutting has been a principal adviser, show that interest in Lawrence’s complex personality has reached a new peak.

Based on research among Lawrence’s published and unpublished writings and in the Middle East, Anthony Nutting’s new biography is a quest for the real Lawrence, for the man behind the image of the cocky figure in Arab robes and the recluse of the R.A.F., to the inner compulsion that led him throughout his life to make superhuman demands upon his mind and body.

Beginning with the early years in Oxford where the secret of his birth cast its first shadows, Anthony Nutting traces Lawrence through the first journeys to the Middle East and follows him through the complicated and heroic campaigns that culminated in the liberation of the Arabs from Turkish domination. He traces too the post-war story of the writing of The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, the disappointments of the peace settlements, the tangled skein of Lawrence’s personal relationships, the motives that led to withdrawal and the new persona of A/C Shaw.