Bolt was known for dramatic works that placed their protagonists in tension with the prevailing society. He won great renown for "A Man for All Seasons", his first iteration of this theme, but he developed it in his existential script for "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962). In "Lawrence", he succeeded where several before him had failed, at turning T. E. Lawrence's "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" into a cogent screenplay by turning the entire book on its head and making it a search for the identity of its author, presenting Lawrence as a misfit both in English and Arab society.