T.E. Lawrence — The Garnetts
The Essential T. E Lawrence
First published in 1951 by Jonathan Cape, The Essential T. E. Lawrence is an attempt by editor David Garnett to create, out of Lawrence’s own writings, a biography of the man who became Lawrence of Arabia. Garnett succeeds at every level by using extracts from Seven Pillars of Wisdom, the Arab Bulletin, and The Mint, plus many letters to his mother, John Buchan, Bernard Shaw, Edward Garnett, and Mrs Thomas Hardy, to name but a few.
David Garnett was a legendary member of the Bloomsbury Group, literary editor, critic and author, whose novel, Aspects of Love, was turned into the stage musical of the same name by Andrew Lloyd Weber in 1989, eight years after David’s death.
David was the son of the publishing editor, Edward Garnett, and it is only right that his son should have been the one to bring The Essential T. E. Lawrence to the reading public.
David’s mother was Constance Garnett (née Black), who was also an author, and one of the first translators into…
