Abridgement

One possible course open to Lawrence was to publish an abridgement, not so much the previously mooted 'Boy Scout' version, but certainly a less personal record. Lawrence agreed that Edward Garnett should experiment with this, and at the beginning of September 1922 sent a set of loose sheets of the printed text for him to work on. Garnett completed the work in ten days, while invalided in the country, and Lawrence subsequently spent some six weeks revising the abridgement, while stationed at Uxbridge and then at the RAF Farnborough School of Photography, taking out further passages which Garnett had spared, and making revisions to others. On 12th November he wrote to Garnett 'I've got on to Akaba with the cutting-up process' (1), while on the 20th he reported 'I have laboured greatly in a week which confined me to camp.' (2) He completed a preface, dated 18.11.22. But, although he thought the abridgement a good one, cutting it himself to around 160,000 words, he had already written to Hogarth on 29th October (3) that he was afraid it would give the public a favourable false impression, with the inevitable cutting of certain aspects of the story, particularly his motives.

1	L 178
2	L 180
3	L 173, D G Hogarth, 29.X.22

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