Richard Aldington and Lawrence of Arabia: A Cautionary Tale

by Fred D. Crawford

Fred Crawford provides the first examination of all parties and points of view embroiled in the controversy generated by Richard Aldington’s 1955 biography of Lawrence of Arabia. While researching Lawrence of Arabia: A Biographical Enquiry, Aldington had made major discoveries, including the extent to which Lawrence had cooperated in the creation of the "Lawrence legend." For this and other reasons, he concluded that Lawrence was a charlatan, a poseur, and a fraud. A powerful group including B. H. Liddell Hart, Robert Graves, and A. W. Lawrence worked behind the scenes to suppress and denigrate the biography and to influence Aldington’s publisher to force him to make changes to the manuscript before it was published. Crawford demonstrates that an influential clique with money and power can damage the reputation of a book even before people have had an opportunity to read it. That Aldington’s findings were nearly suppressed reveals how little freedom of the press can mean when a book displeases influential people with positions—or myths—to maintain. Crawford is the first to compare the viewpoints of the three major factions involved in the controversy. Correspondence by and interviews with many involved directly in the dispute among the three contending parties—Aldington, his publisher, and the opposition coordinated by Hart— make it possible for the reader to know more about the affair than did any of the parties directly involved.

Genres: Middle East

288 pages, Hardcover

First published June 24, 1998

Reviews

[Christopher Saunders · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fred D. Crawford's Richard Aldington and Lawrence of Arabia examines the controversy surrounding the publication of Aldington's "Biographical Enquiry" of Lawrence in the mid-'50s. Aldington, a modestly successful English novelist (Death of a Hero), poet and biographer living in Paris, wrote a biography of T.E. Lawrence that was the first to truly challenge the heroic "Lawrence of Arabia" legend. Crawford presents Aldington as a resolute truth seeker, shocked to discover the lies underpinning a national hero's, who felt compelled to present the truth, consequences be damned. The present writer admits his skepticism: I've always found Aldington's book sour, sarcastic and often meretricious, saying (like many Lawrence bios) more about its author that its subject. Certainly the excerpts of Aldington's correspondence paint him less as a "truth-teller" than an embittered emigre eager to debunk someone he considered "the appropriate hero for his class and epoch." It must be said, though, given the absurd hyperbolic hagiography which grew around Lawrence that a reaction like Aldington's was inevitable, and wasn't entirely unjustified. And even those who dislike Aldington will wince reading the efforts of the "Lawrence Bureau" (Lawrence's brother, Arnold/A.W., military historian Basil Liddell Hart, American journalist Lowell Thomas, etc.) to censor, suppress and smear Aldington's book. A reader might not share Crawford's sympathy for his subject, but the story still serves as an important, disquieting case study of the lengths the Establishment will go to protect its heroes.