"It is quiet here now, and I feel as though I were fixed in my cottage for good. It is as I thought ... something is finished with my leaving the RAF. ... It gets worse instead of healing over ... At present the feeling is mere bewilderment. I imagine leaves must feel like this after they have fallen from their tree and until they die." The Last Days of T.E. Lawrence is a chronicle of the time from when Lawrence of Arabia left the RAF up to his fateful motorcycle accident on 13 May 1935. Much of the story is told in Lawrence's own words, from diaries and letters. It covers his time at Clouds Hill, the picturesque cottage in Dorset, where Lawrence intended to retire. Influenced by Lawrence's last and unpublished writing project, "Leaves in the Wind," A Leaf in the Wind reveals his state of mind as he prepared to leave the RAF. Travelling on his Brough Superior motorcycle along a narrow Dorset lane, Lawrence collided with two pushbikes. An official witness told of Lawrence travelling fast, and swerving to avoid a black car coming in the opposite direction. This book painstakingly fits together all the evidence to determine the truth of the motorcycle crash that led to the death of Lawrence of Arabia. For the first time a detailed record is set down covering the last six days before the accident. Meticulously researched by Paul Marriott and Yvonne Argent, their painstaking investigations reveal many new insights into Lawrence's life, activities and interests.

In T. E. Lawrence: Tormented Hero, Andrew Norman sheds new light on Lawrence of Arabia, who remains a mystery to this day. Lawrence s sexual orientation is discussed in detail, including his dislike of physical relationships, and it is suggested that he suffered from sexual aversion disorder. Evidence that he was beaten on several occasions, at his own request, comes from several sources and appears to be irrefutable. New light is shed on his fatal motorcycle crash in May 1935, and evidence is presented showing that it occurred in a different location and manner to that which is generally supposed. Photographs taken at the time are compared with the present day topography of the site to support this entirely new theory. Other aspects of his life which are discussed, include his relationship with his parents, notably his problematical relationship with his mother Sarah; his role in the Arab Revolt and subsequent disillusionment; his friendship with some of the literati of the day including E. M. Forster, George Bernard Shaw, and Robert Graves; his love for and veneration of Thomas Hardy; how Shaw s wife Charlotte, became his confidante; and how he took Lady Astor pillion riding on his motorcycle.

Lawrence of Arabia, as adviser to Prince Feisal, led camel-riding Bedouin in a guerrilla war against Turkey from Arabia to Damascus. The great British hero of World War I, he helped Winston Churchill draw the map of the modern Middle East, creating Jordan and making Feisal king of Iraq. Then, in 1922, he shed the rank of colonel and his name to serve as a private in the Royal Air Force until shortly before his death in 1935 at age 46. Lawrence has been characterized as a man with extraordinary powers and as an imposter who manufactured his own legend. This careful study, based on virtually all published and unpublished English-language sources, sides neither with Lawrence's eulogists nor with his denigrators. Presenting a fair, balanced picture of his life, it shows the lifelong continuity of his puzzling conduct: the often needless deviousness that troubled even close friends; the self-hatred and savage masochism that cursed his adult years.

Thomas Edward Lawrence (1888-1935), better known as Lawrence of Arabia, is one of the 20th century's most legendary figures.

A noted authority on the Middle East exposes myths and clears up ambiguities concerning the man known as Lawrence of Arabia and shares startling revelations about his last years.