An Iconography of the Portraits of T. E. Lawrence.

GROSVENOR, Charles.

$150.00

Item Number: 126800

Pasadena: The Otterden Press, 1988.

Signed limited edition of Grosvenor’s catalogue of the portraits of T. E. Lawrence. Octavo, original cloth, frontispiece, illustrated. One of 1000 numbered copies signed by the author, this is number 255. Fine in a fine dust jacket. Cover portrait by William Rothenstein. Cover photograph by Vladmir Popovic.

British archaeologist, army officer, diplomat, and writer Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence became renowned for his role in the Arab Revolt (1916–1918) and the Sinai and Palestine Campaign (1915–1918) against the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. The breadth and variety of his activities and associations, and his ability to describe them vividly in writing, earned him international fame as Lawrence of Arabia, a title used for the 1962 film based on his wartime activities. Soon after the outbreak of war in 1914 he volunteered for the British Army and was stationed at the Arab Bureau (established in 1916) intelligence unit in Egypt. In 1916 he travelled to Mesopotamia and to Arabia on intelligence missions and quickly became involved with the Arab Revolt as a liaison to the Arab forces, along with other British officers, supporting the Arab Kingdom of Hejaz's independence war against its former overlord, the Ottoman Empire. He worked closely with Emir Faisal, a leader of the revolt, and he participated, sometimes as leader, in military actions against the Ottoman armed forces, culminating in the capture of Damascus in October 1918.