'The Mint' and Later Writings about Service Life

Lawrence's second book, The Mint, consists of two autobiographical fragments. The first recounts his experiences as an RAF recruit at Uxbridge in 1922. The second describes his life as an aircraftman at Cranwell in 1925–6.
The Uxbridge chapters were to have opened a much longer book about the RAF, but he abandoned the project.
Some years later he began to think of extending The Mint. The enlarged version would cover the remainder of his service in the ranks from 1927 to 1935. For source-material, he would draw on letters to friends.
He did not live to do this, and The Mint – which contains some of his best writing – was finally published as it stood in 1955.
While working on their edition of Lawrence’s letters, Jeremy and Nicole Wilson made a selection from the many passages about his lif in the RAF, arranging them in the form of a diary. These 'Later Writings About Service Life' were first published in 2009. Read as a sequel to The Mint, they provide in Lawrence's own words a far more satisfactory account of his RAF years. They also help explain his affection for service life.
The edition is rounded off by passages from letters about The Mint. These set out the history of the text and Lawrence's attitude towards it.