First edition. An important biography, for which the authors were given access to Lawrence’s private papers by his younger brother and literary executor A.W. Lawrence: ‘[t]he year 1969 saw the appearance in book form of an earlier version of the text which had appeared in serial form in the Sunday Times (1968) [...] [:] The Secret Lives of Lawrence of Arabia. The foreign rights were readily snapped up. This book appeared in more translations than all other Lawrence books except, perhaps, Lawrence’s own Seven Pillars and Revolt. The book did not include quite all of the material contained in newspaper articles’ (O’Brien p. 381). Subsequent biographers have questioned the value of the biography; for example, Jeremy Wilson felt that the authors’ lack of experience led to inaccurate or uninformed statements and interpretations, which ‘were presented with a tremendous veneer of research and authority’ (T.E. Lawrence’s Minorities; an Editor’s Postscript (Fordingbridge: 2006), p. 5).

Also included are parts 2-4 (of, apparently, 4) of the Sunday Times serialisation of the biography (O’Brien H0853, stating that it was serialised in seven parts; however, the fourth is described as the ‘concluding’ part).