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COLLECTION Identifier: MS Eng 1773

T. E. Lawrence correspondence with Siegfried Sassoon and E. M. Forster

Overview

Letters to T. E. Lawrence from E. M. Forster and Siegfried Sassoon and letters from Lawrence to Sassoon.

Dates

  • Creation: 1919-1935

Language of Materials

Collection materials are in English.

Conditions Governing Access

There are no restrictions on physical access to this material. Collection is open for research.

Extent

.25 linear feet (1 box)

Collection contains letters to T. E. Lawrence from E. M. Forster and Siegfried Sassoon and letters from Lawrence to Siegfried. Many of the letters discuss Lawrence's literary work. Some letters are signed "T. E. Shaw" or with the initials "T.E.S.," reflecting Lawrence's use of the pseudonym T. E. Shaw. The collection also includes some manuscript ephemera and a photograph of Siegfried.

Biographical / Historical

T. E. Lawrence was an English author, archaelogist, and British Army officer. In 1923, he changed his name to T. E. Shaw, in part to join the Royal Tank Corps, hoping eventually to return to the Royal Air Force. Lawrence was friends with many poets who survived and sometimes wrote about World War I, Siegfried Sassoon among them. E. M. Forster and Lawrence struck up a literary friendship in 1921 after Forster had read Sassoon's copy of Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom.

Arrangement

Arranged in the following series:

  1. I. Letters to T. E. Lawrence from E. M. Forster and Siegfried Sassoon
  2. II. Letters to Siegfried Sassoon from T. E. Lawrence
  3. III. Other materials

Physical Location

b

Immediate Source of Acquisition

2003M-51. Purchased with the Kilgour Bequest; received: 2004

Processing Information

Processed by: Susan Wyssen

Title
Lawrence, T. E. (Thomas Edward), 1888-1935. T. E. Lawrence correspondence with Siegfried Sassoon and E. M. Forster, 1919-1935: Guide.
Author
Houghton Library, Harvard College Library
Description rules
dacs
Language of description
und
EAD ID
hou02587

Repository Details

Part of the Houghton Library Repository

Houghton Library is Harvard College's principal repository for rare books and manuscripts, archives, and more. Houghton Library's collections represent the scope of human experience from ancient Egypt to twenty-first century Cambridge. With strengths primarily in North American and European history, literature, and culture, collections range in media from printed books and handwritten manuscripts to maps, drawings and paintings, prints, posters, photographs, film and audio recordings, and digital media, as well as costumes, theater props, and a wide range of other objects. Houghton Library has historically focused on collecting the written record of European and Eurocentric North American culture, yet it holds a large and diverse number of primary sources valuable for research on the languages, culture and history of indigenous peoples of the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania.

Houghton Library’s Reading Room is free and open to all who wish to use the library’s collections.

Contact:
Harvard Yard
Harvard University
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(617) 495-2440