or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering
Sell Us Your Item
For a $1.38 Gift Card
Trade in
More Buying Choices
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
Tell the Publisher!
I'd like to read this book on Kindle

Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.
Sorry, this item is not available in
Image not available for
Color:
Image not available

To view this video download Flash Player

 

Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton: A Biography [Paperback]

Edward Rice
4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)

List Price: $27.50
Price: $23.39 & FREE Shipping on orders over $25. Details
You Save: $4.11 (15%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.
Want it Thursday, June 20? Choose One-Day Shipping at checkout. Details

Formats

Amazon Price New from Used from
Paperback $23.39  
Summer Reading
Summer Reading
Browse the best books of summer including blockbusters, beach reads, and editors' picks in our Summer Reading Store.

Book Description

June 5, 2001
A New York Times best-seller when it was first published, Rice's biography is the gripping story of a fierce, magnetic, and brilliant man whose real-life accomplishments are the stuff of legend. Rice retraces Burton's steps as the first European adventurer to search for the source of the Nile; to enter, disguised, the forbidden cities of Mecca and Medina; and to travel through remote stretches of India, the Near East, and Africa. From his spying exploits to his startling literary accomplishments (the discovery and translation of the Kama Sutra and his seventeen-volume translation of Arabian Nights), Burton was an engrossing, larger-than-life Victorian figure, and Rice's splendid biography lays open a portrayal as dramatic, complicated, and compelling as the man himself.

Frequently Bought Together

Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton: A Biography + The Devil Drives: A Life of Sir Richard Burton + Mountains of the Moon
Price for all three: $43.49

Buy the selected items together


Editorial Reviews

Review

"[A] compulsively readable biography." -- The Week 02/20/04

About the Author

Edward Rice is the author of twenty books, including The Man in the Sycamore Tree, Margaret Mead, and John Frum He Come. He lives in Sagaponack, New York.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 688 pages
  • Publisher: Da Capo Press (June 5, 2001)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 030681028X
  • ISBN-13: 978-0306810282
  • Product Dimensions: 1.6 x 5.4 x 8.1 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #280,406 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Of the Burton biographies I have read, this is quite by far the best. D. Blankenship  |  13 reviewers made a similar statement
Rice's treatment of Burton is good. Daniel Graf  |  6 reviewers made a similar statement
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
36 of 37 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars A Great Life in the Great Game September 3, 2004
Format:Paperback
Soldier, spy, swordsman, linguist, proto-anthropologist, adventurer, explorer, eroticist, prolific writer and poet, and seeker after hidden gnosis - Richard Francis Burton was all of this and more. While no single biography can capture the entirety of this amazing life, Edward Rice's book is an insightful, fascinating treatment of this larger than life man, and deserves to be read by all who wish to know Burton.
While Rice's book covers the whole of Burton's life and career, its concentration and strengths are on his period of greatest adventuring and exploring, from his introduction to India and the East as a soldier and spy for the East India Company, through his exploits in Arabia, and his explorations in Africa. Rice lingers long over Burton's wanderings in India, exploring in depth how Burton immersed himself in Eastern languages, customs, religions, and thought until he could easily pass himself off as a native. Burton's most famous exploits - the pilgrimage to Mecca disguised as an Arab, penetrating the sacred and forbidden city of Harar in East Africa (the first European to do so), and his explorations of Central Africa, searching for the source of the Nile, are all covered in depth, with great detail.
Rice takes the time to concentrate on two of the more shadowy aspects of Burton's life - his participation in the "Great Game"; spying for the British Empire, and his personal search after gnosis, the hidden wisdom of life. Often these pursuits were intertwined, as when his initiations into secret Hindu and Sufi sects served both to further his personal quest for gnosis, and to give him cover and openings for his espionage activities.
... Read more ›
Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
32 of 35 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars The Definitive Biography... January 24, 2003
Format:Paperback
This is by far one of the best biographies I've read in recent times. Not only is the subject matter astonishing, capturing the life of one of the most exciting figures of the 19th century, the author focuses on the man's profuse writings, thankfully leaving out the once fashionable psychoanalytic approach of interpretation when writing biography. This is the third life history I've read on Richard Burton, and it's certainly the finest written and the most thorough.

Those of you, who are not familiar with R.F. Burton, are in for a thrilling reading experience. This man, probably more so than Byron himself, is the archetypal Byronic figure of the age: a linguist, (29 languages and numerous dialects), scholar of eastern literature and religion, particularly the mystical arm of Islam, Sufi; a practicing mystic; explorer of Africa (co-discoverer of the source of the Nile); a secret agent working for her majesty during England's acquisition of India's wealth, known to historians as 'The Great Game'. He was also one of the first white men, who made the Pilgrimage to Mecca, and as Rice argues, Burton was and continued to be a practicing Muslim, therefore his pilgrimage was deeply religious as well as a journey of danger and adventure. Burton was dashing, an expert swordsman and horseman, and a prolific writer, poet and translator who rank as one of the best of his time.

Burton is known to most as one of the scholars who brought 'The Arabian Nights' to the West...he heard a lot of the tales through the Persian oral tradition; memorized them in their original language, and sat around many a camp fire in the desert, re-telling these wonderful stories to anyone who would listen. Burton was a storyteller in the truest sense....

What impressed me most about Burton was his alarming intellectual curiousity, his exhaustive industry as a recorder of foreign cultures. While other 'gentleman' of his time would rather murder the wildlife to take back to their drawing rooms, to then hang on their walls, Burton preferred to sketch and write about the places and people he came across in his travels to then share with the rest of us. He was an incessant scribbler. The man's thirst for life was daunting and this magnetic soul ensured he did not waste a minute of it...

Edward Rice's ~Captain Sir Richard Frances Burton~ is the definitive biography. Read more ›

Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars WELL WRITTEN AND WELL RESEARCHED July 5, 2006
Format:Paperback
Of the Burton biographies I have read, this is quite by far the best. The research is great, and for a history book, this is a true page turner. I found it fascintating, that while reading this work, I had to keep reminding myself that this guy, Sir Richard Burton, was a real person, and was not some figment of a writer's imagination. Richard Burton led a fascinating life during a fascinating time in our history. The author captures both the time and the man. I highly recommend you read this one, if at all interested in this man and his time and further recommend you add it to your library as you will probably want to give it more than one read.
Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars epic July 30, 2005
By Munir
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This was an incredible biography, which was much better than Byron Farewell's much dryer work. This version- all 500 pages of it- reads like an epic novel, full of mind twists and adventures. Picture emerges Burton the what he was, a towering intellectual, an intrepid explorer. A compulsive writer who churned out massively detailed works between his exploits of discovery in the wilds of India, Arabia, and Black Africa, scandalizing Victorian England mostly by his views on female sexual liberation (he translated the Kama Sutra) or to the superiority of Islam over Pauline Christianity- although Rice mistakenly concluded that Burton was a faithful convert to this religion for most of his life (he seems rather to have been a confirmed skeptic). In an age of hypocrisy, he certainly stands out as a not afraid to speak his mind- and he had a lot of opinions.
Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Burton, Richard Burton August 8, 2001
Format:Paperback
Sir Richard Francis Burton spoke, proficiently, over twenty languages. A prolific writer and skilled translator, he wrote a very large number of books on the most diverse subjects (history, religion, geography, travel, sexology, ethnography, etc.); introduced the Kama Sutra to the West and translated from Arabic the Book of A Thousand Night and a Night (the Thousand and One Nights). He was also an explorer, soldier, fencing expert and, specially, a secret agent. He visited, a hundred and fifty years ago, some of the farthest corners of India, Africa, and South America, travelling, in most cases, through hostile and uncharted territories. He was one of the few Westerners who entered (and survived) the sacred Islamic city of Mecca, disguised as an Arab, and he was the first one to enter the forbidden city of Harar, in the heart of Africa. With a personal history like this (yes, it is all real, and there is more) it seems to me that even the least competent biographer would write an interesting book. Edward Rice, however, is more than a competent biographer and his book is really good. He describes in detail the adventurous and turbulent life of Burton, providing useful commentaries on the places Burton went to, the nature of the religions he became initiated in and contemporary society in general. Throughout the book it is evident that he researched intensely and that he visited some of the places where Burton lived. He is also objective to his subject, always justifying his statements with information. The book is clearly written and never boring. I am sure it is one of the best biographies of Captain Burton.
Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Victorian intellectual and "Badass"
Rice's biography is probably the definitive work on Sir Richard Francis Burton.
Burton, the true intellectual and self imposed outcast of his day. Read more
Published 20 days ago by William L Floyd
5.0 out of 5 stars The definitive Burton
In the Introduction of CAPTAIN SIR RICHARD FRANCIS BURTON Edward Rice tells us that if Burton had been the invention of a fictional work, no one would have believed it, and--even... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Boyd Hone
5.0 out of 5 stars The most facinating biography I've read, thus far.
Sir Captain Richard burton was the real-deal: a man's man. His accomplishments will always amaze even generations to come. Read more
Published 6 months ago by James Clapp
5.0 out of 5 stars Extraordinary!
This superbly researched biography depicts one of history's most exceptional men. Everything about him really is stranger than fiction. And that includes his marriage. Read more
Published 8 months ago by NanookMN
5.0 out of 5 stars A Fascinating Life
In the current culture clash between America and the Middle Eastern versions of Islam, it's fascinating to follow one man as he bridged an earlier divide between East and West in... Read more
Published 9 months ago by Ben R. Shipley
3.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining but Inaccurate
From a scholastic point of view--and I write as an academic--this biography is often inaccurate due to Rice's determination to come to easy or desired conclusions about Burton. Read more
Published 22 months ago by The Conscience of Zeno
3.0 out of 5 stars Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton: A Timeline
First of all, this is the only biography on Burton that I've read, so I don't have any others to use as a comparison. Read more
Published on April 20, 2011 by David Kingsbury
5.0 out of 5 stars A fabulous Victorian Explorer
Sir Richard Francis Burton is one of the most fascinating of the 19th century English explorers -- going into India, Afganistan, Persia, the Arabian Peninsula and parts of Africa... Read more
Published on March 24, 2011 by Holly Hartshorn
3.0 out of 5 stars Good, but over-detailed or biased
I enjoyed this biograpy of Burton, who is a deeply fascinating man. As several other readers have stated, Rice can spend too much time detailing information that isn't really... Read more
Published on June 7, 2010 by Jess
5.0 out of 5 stars Definitive Biography of Fascinating Man
My interest in Richard Francis Burton arose from my encounter with "The Book of 1,000 Nights and One Night" otherwise known as "The Arabian Nights". Read more
Published on February 20, 2009 by Roger Berlind
Search Customer Reviews
Only search this product's reviews



Books on Related Topics (learn more)


Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store

If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store. Learn more

Forums

There are no discussions about this product yet.
Be the first to discuss this product with the community.
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 



So You'd Like to...


Create a guide


Look for Similar Items by Category