January-March 1920

Lawrence completes most of a new draft of Seven Pillars in four weeks, working at 14 Barton Street. The result is useful, but 'hopelessly bad as a text'. 

April 1920

Lawrence returns to Oxford for the month. He joins a group that is privately urging the Government to set up a new Middle East Department.

August 1920

Lawrence begins work on an abridgement of Seven Pillars with a view to publication in the United States, where publicity will not be an embarrassment. He hopes that the profits will pay for a building to house the printing press at Pole Hill. He abandons the project after drafting a few chapters, because he is advised that the income from publication in the US alone will not be very great.

September 1920

Lawrence starts work on a polished draft of the complete text of Seven Pillars. He also begins to make contact with artists willing to execute portraits for the book. Notable among these is Eric Kennington, who agrees to travel to the Middle East to draw portraits of Arabs who took part.

October 1920

While working on Seven Pillars, Lawrence also continues to campaign, privately and in the press, against the Middle East settlement.

November 1920

Winston Churchill is appointed Colonial Secretary and makes plans to set up a Middle East Department. One of his principal tasks will be to find a solution to Britain's difficulties in Mesopotamia (approximately equivalent to modern Iraq). Attempts by the Imperial Government of India to impose a colonial administration there have provoked a large-scale rebellion.

December 1920

On 4 December, Lawrence is invited to meet Churchill in London to discuss the problem of the Middle East. There are two further meetings that month.