Lawrence of Arabia's heroism during the Arab revolt and his disgust at
the subsequent betrayal of the Arabs in the postwar negotiations have
become the stuff of legend. But T. E. Lawrence's adventures in the
Levant began long before the outbreak of war. This intimate biography is
the first to focus on Lawrence in his twenties, the untold story of the
awkward archaeologist from Oxford who, on first visiting The East, fell
in love with Arab culture and found his life's mission.
Few people realize that Lawrence's classic autobiography, Seven Pillars
of Wisdom, was not the first book to carry that iconic title. Lawrence
himself burned his original draft. Anthony Sattin here uncovers the
story Lawrence wanted to conceal: the truth of his birth, his tortuous
relationship with a dominant mother, his deep affection for an Arab boy,
and the personal reasons that drove him from student to spy.
Drawing on surviving letters, diaries, and accounts from close
confidantes, Sattin brings a biographer's eye for detail and a travel
writer's verve to Lawrence's extraordinary journeys through the region
with which his name is forever connected. In a masterful parallel
narrative, The Young T. E. Lawrence charts the maturation of the man
and the incipient countries he treasured, both coming of age at a time
when the world's foundations were coming undone.
