The Young T. E. Lawrence

by Anthony Sattin

Overview

An intimate biography of the years that turned T. E. Lawrence into Lawrence of Arabia.

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393242669
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	01/26/2015
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Anthony Sattin is the author of The Gates of Africa, The Young T. E. Lawrence, A Winter on the Nile, and other acclaimed books of history and travel. His journalism has appeared in publications around the world. He lives in London, England.

Table of Contents

Maps ix

A Note on Spelling and Transliteration xiii

Prologue: The First Spark 1

Part I The Young Scholar

1 Landing 13

2 Origins 18

3 Father Confessor 30

4 On Foot and Alone 37

5 A Glorious Country for Wandering In 50

6 Pushing the Boundaries 69

Part II The Young Archaeologist

7 Forgotten Far Off Things 81

8 The Apprentice 95

9 The Wanderer After Sensations 117

10 If the Italians Permit 133

11 Because Lie Loves Us 158

12 An Old Story 169

13 The Happiest Time, the Richest Dig 177

14 Gathering Storm 190

15 Eating Lotos 199

Part III The Young Spy

16 A Splendid Trip 219

17 Another Seep, a Long Way 236

18 Shooting and Burning 246

19 Of Arabia 253

Epilogue: An Unpeaceful Peace 260

Acknowledgements 267

Copyright Acknowledgements 271

Notes 273

Bibliography 295

Index 30

Editorial Reviews

11/24/2014
Sattin (Lifting the Veil), a travel writer with an extensive background in the Middle East, approaches the oft-profiled T.E. Lawrence from a new angle, focusing exclusively on the first half of Lawrence’s life, prior to the events that would make him famous. He wonders “how the second son of a quiet, comfortably off, apparently unexceptional Oxford family came to play a role—any role—in the Arab uprising.” An enterprising and brilliant archaeologist with a taste for adventure, Lawrence spent several formative years on a dig at Carchemish (on the modern Turkey-Syria frontier) and made a number of exploratory treks around the region. Noting the extent to which Lawrence adopted local culture, Sattin points out that he was, by Arab standards, “an extremely unusual for being wealthy and still wanting to walk alone, in the remote countryside, in the summer.” Brief and engaging, the book makes extensive use of Lawrence’s correspondence with his parents, brothers, and colleagues. Sattin argues that Lawrence fought for Arab self-determination because he viewed it as “an acceptable present for the man he had loved,” a teenager who taught him Arabic at Carchemish and died in late 1916 or early 1917, probably of typhus. Agent: Melanie Jackson, Melanie Jackson Agency. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

"Anthony Sattin proves that the British know how to write a great adventure as well as how to have one. This highly readable book never lacks the big story but it also does not let that history lose the hero."

New York Journal of Books - Robert Davis

"Sattin has written a compelling account of a young man learning to live according to his dreams."

Observer (London)

"Sattin’s unique portrait reveals an itinerant scholar adventurously immersing himself in the history, peoples, and landscapes of the Near East, the chrysalis of the brilliant figure soon to emerge: Lawrence of Arabia."

Steve Kemper

"T. E. Lawrence has always been one of the most enigmatic figures of the twentieth century, but he becomes markedly less so here. Through meticulous research and crackling prose, Sattin charts the youthful passions and influences—and not a few family and personal secrets—that helped create the future Lawrence of Arabia, and he has done so in an account so well-written that it is hard to put down. An absolutely indispensable read for anyone hoping to understand the evolution of one of the most beguiling and romantic figures of the modern age."

Scott Anderson

"I enjoyed The Young T. E. Lawrence very much. On the subject of biography, Ulysses S. Grant once wrote that 'What I want to know is what a man did as a boy,' i.e., 'the formative years,' and while Lawrence is not a boy in Anthony Sattin’s splendid book, he clearly prefigures Lawrence of Arabia—a conscious striving toward becoming a hero, and a bold exploration not only of the Middle East but of himself."

Michael Korda

"Anthony Sattin knows a good story when he sees one. While most of Lawrence's biographers focus heavily on the war period, Sattin has grasped the importance of the years Lawrence spent in the Middle East beforehand, essential preparation for what followed. As a travel writer enlarging on the writings of a forerunner, Sattin also often enriches Lawrence's account. I thoroughly enjoyed the result."

Jeremy Wilson

"Passionate, informed… Anthony Sattin reached that place of grace in his research for The Young T.E. Lawrence where a writer can relax and let the story tell itself. And what a story he has to tell."

The Toronto Star - Linda Diebel

"Sattin paints a rich picture of these years in Lawrence’s life."

Wall Street Journal - Philip Delves Broughton

"[A] quirky but rigorous biographical study…biographers such as Mr. Sattin have to be diggers and restorers, sifting a mass of evidence and gluing the bits together."

The Economist

★ 12/01/2014
The dramatic exploits of T.E. Lawrence (1888–1935) during World War I are widely known; however, journalist Sattin (The Gates of Africa) reaches further back; his engaging portrait covers the maturation of the young Lawrence and illuminates his intellectual and emotional connections with Arab culture. Sattin avoids glib psychological speculation but links Lawrence's upbringing in a self-isolating and unconventional family to his happiness living in a vastly different world. The work demonstrates how Lawrence's ability to earn broad respect as a university student, an archaeologist, and an expert on the disintegrating Ottoman Empire prepared him for an important role when Britain opened a Middle Eastern front in World War I. Sattin read widely in letters and memoirs by Lawrence and his colleagues, as well as numerous secondary sources, to create a convincing explanation of his subject's emergence as a leader who combined intense focus and discipline, physical bravery and endurance, and cultural understanding. VERDICT Recommended as an insightful, gracefully written, and sensitive account that explains how a shy, private young man developed into a widely known and revered "hero" who was never comfortable with his fame. [See Prepub Alert, 7/21/14.]—Elizabeth Hayford, formerly with Associated Coll. of the Midwest, Evanston, IL

Library Journal

2014-10-22
Sattin (The Gates of Africa: Death, Discovery, and the Search for Timbuktu, 2004, etc.) details the early years of the man who loved the Arabian people and determined to free them from Turkish rule.As a young man, even before his years at Jesus College at Oxford, T.E. Lawrence (1888-1935) developed a love of all things medieval, especially knights and castles. In 1906, as an 18-year-old, he bicycled 2,400 miles through France seeking medieval churches and doing brass rubbings. Even at this young age, his strength of character was obvious. His intense gaze, obsessive concentration and photographic memory helped him become a man who would succeed in being accepted and admired by all those he met. In 1909, Lawrence journeyed to Syria to explore crusader castles and research his thesis, which was titled "Influence of the Crusades on European Military Architecture." He walked everywhere in the area for the entire summer, felt he could never be English again, and only left when he was robbed and beaten. His mentor, D.G. Hogarth, Director of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, then led him into his happiest years, as an archaeologist. The author has explored and followed in the footsteps of Lawrence, and it shows in his deep understanding of his goals, why he did what he did and how he managed. Lawrence was assigned to the dig in Carchemish near the Euphrates searching for a method to reveal their cuneiform writings. He mastered Arabic and gained the respect of the natives, easily winning their appreciation through his abilities and fearlessness in the face of danger or hardship. Lawrence's accomplishments in his youth are only the beginning of the legend, something he fiercely disdained; what he did after his 26th birthday is another story that readers hope Sattin will tackle. A masterful account of the beginnings of a unique man.

Kirkus Reviews