Lawrence's own account of his experience after the Arab Revolt - when he joined the RAF under a new name.

In 1922, his dreams of an independent Arabia shattered, T.E. Lawrence enlisted in the RAF under the assumed name John Hume Ross. Though methodical and restrictive, life there seemed to suit Lawrence:

'The Air Force is not a man-crushing humiliating slavery, all its days. There is sun and decent treatment, and a very real measure of happiness, to those who do not look forward or back.'

With poetic clarity, Lawrence brings to life the harsh realities of barracks life and illuminates the strange twilight world he had slipped into after his war experiences. For anyone interested in the life of one of the 20th century's most enduring heroes and his life beyond the well-documented Arab revolt, The Mint is essential and compelling reading.

A severely chiselled picture of barrack life: Joycean in style, sometimes brilliant in evocation, structured as a series of set-pieces, showing a decided advance in control over Seven Pillars of Wisdom. -- Irving Howe
The Mint, written in a very different style to Seven Pillars of Wisdom, is, like Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, a work of observation written by a highly intelligent man who found himself effectively imprisoned. Lawrence distilled its spare descriptions from events that he had witnessed over and over again. -- Jeremy Wilson

Thomas Edward Lawrence was born in 1888. Educated at Oxford, he was later made a research fellow of All Souls College. During the First World War he was attached to the Hejaz Expeditionary Force and later transferred to General Allenby s staff. In 1921 he became Advisor on Arab Affairs in the Colonial Office. In 1927, uncomfortable with his 'Lawrence of Arabia' legend, Lawrence joined the RAF. He was killed in a motorbike accident in 1935 at the age of 47. Author of the classic Seven Pillars of Wisdom and its abridged version, Revolt in the Desert, Lawrence also wrote a prose translation of Homer's Odyssey.