T. E. Lawrence Authorized Biography

BOOK REVIEWS whether Wilde actually saw W. Lestocq's The Foundling while he was writing Earnest, Powell does substantiate Wilde's debt to Lestocq. However, where The Foundling "dissolves into bland conventionality," Wilde turns conventional views and values upside down. Earnest does the same to the devices of standard farce, using epigram and paradox to invert commonplace ideas and clichés, rendering them humorous and brilliant. While most of this book is scholarly, I do have a few reservations. Powell's remarks on the nature of the 1890s London theatre could benefit from my article on the subject (Educational Theatre Journal, 29 [1977], 320-32), which is absent from Powell's otherwise excellent bibliography. Absent, too, is Tracy C. Davis's article on parodies of Ibsen in England (Nineteenth Century Theatre Research, 13 [1985], 87-102), which would have given further dimension to Powell's observations on Ibsen. And while much of Powell's argument is sane and tempered, he makes perhaps too much of the influence of the anonymous The M.P.'s Wife on Ideal: the former was performed probably once or twice (and certainly no more than seven times) and was unpublished. Interestingly a few pages later the limited run (and the lack of effect of that) of Conan Doyle's Foreign Policy is pointed out. In chapter eight Powell places the production of Godpapa (an influence on Earnest) at both the Court and Comedy Theatres (the latter is correct). I must also register an objection to Powell's somewhat repetitive style, especially in such a slim volume: we are told frequently how most Victorian plays have disappeared, and the "Chiltern Hundreds" receives similar overdefinition, while many facts are repeated within chapters. Cavils aside, this is an interesting, scholarly, and mature book which is the product of wide, fully acknowledged research. It fulfills its objectives completely and should become standard reading for understanding the influences on Wilde's work and for seeing Wilde in the wider context of the theatre of his day. τ π „r J J. P. Wearing ------------------------------------- University of Arizona T. E. Lawrence Authorized Biography Jeremy Wilson. Lawrence ofArabm: The Authorized Biography of T. E. Lawrence. New York: Atheneum, 1990.1188 pp. $35.00 JEREMY WILSON describes Lawrence of Arabia as an "historical biography " because it is based almost entirely on contemporary documents rather than on later testimony and "seeks primarily to give a factual 89 ELT : VOLUME 35:1 1992 narrative, together with the most objective account possible of the subject's personality and opinions." In addition to Lawrence's own writings, the Lawrence literature comprises, among other items, more than thirty biographies (including John Mack's A Prince of Our Disorder , 1976); Konrad Morsels archival study T. E. Lawrence und der arabische Auf stand 1916/18 (1976); Maurice Larès's work on Lawrence and the French; and Philip O'Brien's prize-winning T. E. Lawrence: A Bibliography (1988). There are also many additional academic specialist studies that Wilson ignores except in a vague sentence in one footnote (p. 980), in which he promises for 1990 an annotated bibliography that had not yet appeared in late August 1991. Since Wilson's book was written, yet another biography has been published: Lawrence James's Golden Warrior: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabm (1990). What has Wilson contributed to our already substantial knowledge of Lawrence? Essentially, Wilson's biography will serve scholars as a mine of valuable source material that buttresses or augments what we knew already; there are no major breakthroughs. He is especially good on the important period of the Arab Revolt. The Jordanian historian Suleiman Mousa has doubted that Lawrence played the major role in the development of the plan to capture Akaba. Mousa's position has been rejected by most scholars, but by carefully tracing the documentary chronology of Lawrence's thinking about Akaba, the information available to Lawrence at various times, and the development of Feisal's ideas, Wilson has gone far toward substantiating if not actually proving Lawrence's claim in Seven PilL·™ of Wisdom that "Akaba had been taken on my plan by my effort." John Mack could not find evidence to support Lawrence's claim...