The title comes from the Book of Proverbs; [3] "Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars" ( Proverbs 9:1) ( King James Version). Before the First World War, Lawrence had begun work on a scholarly book about seven great cities of the Middle East, [a] to be called Seven Pillars of Wisdom. It was incomplete when war broke out and Lawrence stated that he destroyed the manuscript. He used his original title for the later work. Anderson, Scott (2013). Lawrence in Arabia: War, deceit, imperial folly and the making of the modern Middle East. Doubleday. ISBN 978-0-385-53292-1– via Internet Archive (archive.org). Lawrence, T. E. (2003). Seven Pillars of Wisdom: The Complete 1922 Text. Castle Hill Press. ISBN 978-1-873141-39-7. The book had to be rewritten three times, once following the loss of the manuscript on a train at Reading railway station. From Seven Pillars, "...and then lost all but the Introduction and drafts of Books9 and 10 at Reading Station, while changing trains. This was about Christmas, 1919." (p.21) Wilson 1989, p.33: In note 34, Wilson discusses a painting in Lawrence's possession at the time of his death which appears to show him as a boy in RGA uniform.

The Wilderness of Zin, by C. Leonard Woolley and T. E. Lawrence. London, Harrison and Sons, 1914. [209] Lawrence of Arabia? We're more into the Taliban now". London Evening Standard. 25 February 2013 . Retrieved 20 July 2019.

publ. date inferred from Firth, J.B. (29 July 1935). "How Lawrence of Arabia saw himself". The Observer (book review). London, UK. published this day . The archaeologist smokescreen military intelligence missions in the Middle East were crucial for the allies' ultimate victory with most of the fuel resources for the Central Powers cut by the British forces. Thomas Edward Lawrence CB DSO (16 August 1888– 19 May 1935) was a British archaeologist, army officer, diplomat, and writer who 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.

The Lawrence story invites compelling questions. Why did British men of the period revel in the romance of the desert Arab? Did Allied treachery during the Revolt plant seeds of resentment that grew to shape the region? What did Lawrence think of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, which carved up the Middle East with such disastrous consequences? Was Lawrence actually a fraud? None of these issues are covered. But Fiennes’s book is a pleasant primer for readers who enjoy tales of adventure in the desert sands. Seven Pillars of Wisdom" is a song by power metal group Sabaton about Lawrence, released in July 2019 on the album The Great War. In the summer of 1896, the family moved to 2 Polstead Road in Oxford, where they lived until 1921. [11] Lawrence attended the City of Oxford High School for Boys from 1896 until 1907, [14] where one of the four houses was later named "Lawrence" in his honour; the school closed in 1966. [16] Lawrence and one of his brothers became commissioned officers in the Church Lads' Brigade at St Aldate's Church. [17] In horror of such sordid commerce [diseased female prostitutes] our youths began indifferently to slake one another's few needs in their own clean bodies — a cold convenience that, by comparison, seemed sexless and even pure. Later, some began to justify this sterile process, and swore that friends quivering together in the yielding sand with intimate hot limbs in supreme embrace, found there hidden in the darkness a sensual co-efficient of the mental passion which was welding our souls and spirits in one flaming effort [to secure Arab independence]. Several, thirsting to punish appetites they could not wholly prevent, took a savage pride in degrading the body, and offered themselves fiercely in any habit which promised physical pain or filth. [227]Their knowledge of the nature and power and country of the Arabic-speaking peoples made them think that the issue of such a rebellion would be happy: and indicated its character and method. Richard Meinertzhagen (1878–1967), British intelligence officer and ornithologist, on occasion a colleague of Lawrence's Max von Oppenheim (1860–1946), German-Jewish lawyer, diplomat and archaeologist. Lawrence called his travelogue "the best book on the [Middle East] area I know". Meyer, Karl E.; Brysac, Shareen Blair (2008). Kingmakers: the Invention of the Modern Middle East. New York / London: W.W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-06199-4– via Internet Archive (archive.org).