Customer Reviews

Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton: The Secret Agent Who Made the Pilgrimage to Mecca, Discovered the Kama Sutra, and Brought the Arabian Nights to the West

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
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This was by far the best biography of the illustrious Richard Burton I have read. The level of scholarship displayed by the author is impressive and does justice to a man whose gifts made him one of the most impressive characters from history. I highly recommend this book as well as those written by Burton himself.

It is one of the most comprehensive biographies I have ever read. The book literally changed my life. The adventures and the knowledge that Richard Burton undertook and learned can fill 100 lifetimes. I have worked (albeit unsuccessfully) to approach the intensity of this man's life. It is so rewarding to read about a man who was the scholar and the adventurer and who leaves the reader with a sense of awe that one man can accomplish as much as he did. The book is great not only because it tells of Burton, but because in the process of learning about him, you vicariously learn about unknown cultures and esoteric knowledge that would take volumes to fill. It takes you on a journey to another world.

You want to talk about traveling, eating, praying and loving.....the bio of Sir Richard Francis Burton is the real deal on Eat Pray Love. This Englishman who lived during 1821-1890 traveled throughout India, made the pilgrimage to Mecca,(incognito) explored parts of Africa in search of the Nile's source, lived as consul in Damascus, Brazil and Italy. Having to learn many different languages and dialects (29), study several religions, cultures, eat the food, wear the clothes, screw the women, he became one of "them" (depending on which country he was in as a spy) else he'd be killed.

Facing death by starvation, thirst, exhaustion, countless diseases, temporary blindness, attacks from native barbarians during his treks across lands, where in some cases no white man had ever been, he kept careful notes of all he witnessed to be published upon his return. As if that weren't enough, he went on to translate the Kama Sutra and Arabian Nights, before this amazing man died of the ripe old age of 69.

This is a book that may look intimidating with its 600+ pages, but unlike some other reviewers, I did not find a single dull moment. Edward Rice has done a truly masterful job in carrying us through the whole life of this extraordinary man.

Burton had energy and talent enough for any six normal people - perhaps more. Even in his declining years, weak and wracked by sickness, he still traveled, traveled compulsively, though in these latter days the travels did not, as always previously, produce books full of information on the places and people and societies he visited. He was now focused on the translations for which he is (among other things) famous. Yet still, when the old lion was required to return from England to his "official" consular job in Trieste, Rice notes that "Noise, fatigue, hours spent in changing trains or boarding or disembarking from steamboats did not deter Burton. Geneva, Venice, Naples, Brindisi, Malta, Tunis, Algiers, the Riviera, the Alps, with a dozen stops in between, were visited and complained about."

It's hard to give the flavor of this amazing biography - amazing life! Soaking up languages as if by osmosis, dressing and passing for any of a dozen Eastern races and sharing their ways, visiting their secret holy places - hey, what a movie or TV series, would knock spots off Tomb Raiders etc...

The pleasure is increased by Rice's occasional laconic throwaway lines: "The Maratha princes...were patrons of the great god Siva and practiced forms of phallic worship, engaged in by male and female devotees alike in very wild and primitive rites." That's all we get on that. (But then, perhaps it's all we need.)

Rice describes Doughty, another famous writer on the Middle East, as writing "a rich and tortured prose that still wins him admiration but few readers."

Many mind-jolting incidents: on Burton's wife Isabel's difficulties in South America, preaching to the black slaves: "Her only convert was a black dwarf named Chico, who betrayed her faith in him by roasting her favorite cat alive over the kitchen fire." But Chico continued in her service - no others available!

He has an eye for other people's good quotes: Burton's predecessor at Trieste had been handed the post of consul with Lord Derby's comment, "Here is six hundred a year for doing nothing, and you are just the man to do it."

I believe it would help us all to better understand the current Middle East to read this account of the sources it sprang from, 150 years ago. No, they are not like us (Westerners) and never have been. We even see the first mention of the Wahhabis, "a much-feared set of fundamentalists who were noted for their violence and puritanical beliefs..."

The writing is so accomplished that I regret having to raise one correction: in the Royal Navy you don't travel "in the H.M.S Antelope" for instance. You travel "in HMS Antelope - no "the" (and usually no periods in HMS). Doesn't make sense, anyway, when you recall that HMS stands for His (or Her) Majesty's Ship. Contrariwise, "the" is OK with "SS Oldiron" - "the steam ship Oldiron."

But that doesn't reduce the five stars!

A mostly gripping account of an absolutely fascinating life. Rice tells in great detail the travels and troubles of Burton as he searches for the source of the Nile, penetrates the forbidden cities of Mecca and Medina, brings the Kama Sutra to the west, translates the Arabian Nights, and joins a snake cult in India, and that is just a small sampling of the accomplishments and endeavors of Burton, a man who was constantly exploring himself and his world and transforming both in the process.

Rice tells the story with such attention to detail you feel like you are traveling right beside Burton, and when he doesn't know certain facts about a specific incident, he will tell you that he is conjecturing, and how he came to the conclusions he did. The net effect is that you feel like you can trust what Rice has written as being authentic and accurate.

The book is kind of slow during the earlier chapters, but stay with it and you will be rewarded with one of the most fascinating accounts you have ever read. I read it more than 5 years ago and still recommend the book and find and give away stray copies to friends. GO OUT OF YOUR WAY TO GET THIS BOOK ! !

The most incredible thing about this book is the fact that it's true! Burton led such an extraordinary life! I would recommend this book to anyone who is curious, but reluctant to travel, experience, and live. This book is also excellent for anyone who is interested in language, religion, or travel. Burton spoke 26 languages, experienced firsthand an assortment of different religions including Hinduism and Islam, and shows just how much one person can accomplish in a lifetime. Only 4 stars due to some dry bits in the book, but never a dull moment in Burton's life...

One of the most unique figures of the 19th century. If anyone from that era might qualify as a renaissance man surely it would be this man. The very model of the 19th century explorer, but not only an explorer of the globe but of the human experience. A soldier in India, traveler across the Middle East, explorer in Somalia and Central Africa and diplomat,translator, author, poet, probably the most noted linguist of his time. There doesn't appear to be any area of human existence that didn't fascinate and intrigue him. While he was often lionized in Victorian England, his interests extended into human sexuality as it was practiced in the various lands he traveled, and scandalized many of his contemporiaries, and most especially his wife, who spent a significant portion of the time immediately following his death burning as much of his writings as she could get her hands on. This book is as close to being the definitive work of his life as anything ever written, including all his various flaws and pecularities.

Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton was a scholar, linguist, explorer, anthropologist, cartographer, mystic, diplomat, raconteur, and libertine. It always amazes me that most people have never heard of him, but I suppose he was pushed under the rug because his attitudes towards sex and other religions were an embarrassment to the upright citizens of Victorian England (and modern school book writers). The fact that his wife Isabel burned a great deal of his manuscripts after his death didn't help either.

Usually given short shrift by historians, Burton's genius and madness are explored at length in this wonderfully written, detailed biography. The only thing I would change would be to include more maps detailing Burton's journeys, a map at the beginning of each chapter would not be excessive.

If you want some Burton light, Philip Jose Farmer made him the main character in his Riverworld series To Your Scattered Bodies Go (Riverworld Saga, Book 1), and Jude Deveraux models the character Frank Baker after him in The Duchess.

THIS IS a well researched.well written biography of a life that is truly inspiring.

Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton: The Secret Agent Who Made the Pilgrimage to Mecca, Discovered the Kama Sutra, and Brought the Arabian Nights to the West

"A Chartered Vagabond"


Other people have done an excellent job cataloguing Sir Richard Francis Burton's many accomplishments as an explorer; discoverer (with Richard Speke) of the source of the Nile; linguist (fluent in 29 languages);
Social historian; diplomat and spy; and translator of Arabian Nights - the list goes on and on. Burton was a true Renaissance Man. In his magisterial biography of Burton, Edward Rice does more than list Burton's exploits - he illuminates his time. Burton was complicated -- he was a product of Victorian England, a renegade at Oxford, from which he was dismissed, and an enemy of slavery and oppression. He worked on behalf of the British Empire during the "Great Game" between Britain and Russia over control of Afghanistan (then, as now, strategically important).
But he also enjoyed assuming another identity; eating native cuisine, learning foreign manners and customs, and enjoying the company of native women. For a committed Moslem, who knew and practiced Islam and followed some of its dictates, Burton was a voluptualist. During his time in India, he had multiple affairs with Indian women and probably fathered some children by them.

The whole story of his life takes a full 600 pages, and Edward Rice uses them to draw liberally from Burton's own writings, which range from treatises on swordsmanship to a commentary on Mormonism (Burton went to Salt Lake City to study polygamy) to ethnographic reports. Unfortunately, much of his work was burned after his death by his widow, Isabel, so some graphic descriptions of sexual practices are gone.
His preoccupation with sex probably delayed his knighthood until late in life.
Just listing Burton's injuries and accidents is exhausting... he suffered from vision problems, an infected foot, dysentery, and a native spear that penetrated his jaw and knocked out several teeth.
Burton dealt with the envy of fellow Englishmen who criticized his "becoming Arab" and somehow diminishing the European.
Burton's contentious relationship with John Hanning Speke overshadowed the accomplishment in discovering the source of the Nile - Speke maintaining it was he alone who found the source. Burton was the ultimate nomad... the "chartered vagabond" who was never content to stay in the comfort zone of civilization.
"Along with the menace of the heat and rain there were the people. The population was `mostly hostile, and eyed us with hateful eyes, and seemed to have taught even their animals to abhor us' Over and over again, Rice writes, Burton warned that sooner or later the Indian people would rise against the English, and when they did, particularly in the Rebellion of 1857, he could only regret his prophecy."

Rice's biography of Burton is a joy to read. It is well-organized, detailed,erudite but not condescending; and yet moves along at a pace like a novel. Also highly recommended, "Mountains of the Moon," a cinematic treatment of the Burton/Speke relationship.
Mountains of the Moon