TE LAWRENCE LETTERS TO HENRY WILLIAMSON

“Dear Williamson, Various things have held me back from writing to you. My move: I am a creature of habit and to change station upsets my mind. My work: it is heavy here, so that for three months I have done no reading. Your glory: for you are a figure now: and you will not want the encouragement of private people”…he writes about Williamson’s success, [he won the Hawthornden Prize for Literature in 1928 for Tarka the Otter]…”The risk is that you may grow too rich! Because then you will have, like poor Belloc, always to do all sorts of dirty things to earn a little more”.

With the original envelope in Lawrence’s hand

Provenance: Property from the library of a Dorset Gentleman.

Bibliography: TE Lawrence correspondence with Henry Williamson, Russell Hill Press, 2000; Genius of Friendship, ‘T.E. Lawrence’ by Henry Williamson p.23

After T.E. Lawrence wrote to Henry Williamson from India in January 1928 about his book Tarka the Otter which had been published in 1927, the two men began a correspondence and friendship which lasted until Lawrence’s death. They were both very unusual, sensitive men who Williamson himself described as having twin psyches. Their letters were frank, honest and very illuminating and most of their friendship was conducted through their correspondence (they only met twice and very briefly). We have nine of these important letters from T.E. Lawrence to Williamson which date between August 1928 and December 1934, thus documenting most of their relationship. Lawrence died on 19th May 1935.