A Rage to Live: A Biography of Richard and Isabel Burton (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

More than a century after their deaths, Richard and Isabel Burton are legend. Sir Richard Burton was a prolific writer, an insatiable explorer, a linguist, and a translator who pursued controversy and risk as surely as adventure. In 1853, disguised as an Afghani doctor, he became one of the first Europeans to enter the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina. He later led an expedition to discover the source of the Nile--whether he got there first was later protractedly disputed. He spoke dozens of languages and translated the erotic works The Arabian Nights, The Kama Sutra, and The Perfumed Garden into English, making him fall afoul of the National Vigilance Society and the Society for the Suppression of Vice. Isabel, for her part, defied her upper-crust family to marry Richard and lead the "wild, roving, vagabond life" she had dreamed of as a stifled young lady. She was her husband's collaborator, editor, and most vehement advocate. She defended his oft-besmirched reputation, promoted his writing, successfully campaigned to make him knighted--even arranged a dinner with the queen. After Richard's death, Isabel came under fire for burning his papers, including the Kama Sutra translation. This double biography by Mary S. Lovell (biographer, too, of Amelia Earhart, Beryl Markham, and Jane Digby) attempts to dispel many of the myths that have grown up around the pair of famous Victorians. She defends Isabel's burning her husband's papers as an act designed to protect his reputation and privacy. Lovell points out that even after their being burned, more of Richard's papers remained than were left by many of his contemporaries. And she cites them as primary source material for the book. Lovell also strenuously contradicts the long-held belief that Richard was gay--his interest in and writings about male sexuality, she believes, were borne purely of anthropological research. The Burtons, she assures readers, had an ideal marriage in every way, but she offers little supporting material to prove her claim. Lovell's views seem sometimes to be colored by her adoration for her subjects. But the obvious breadth of her research and her narrative skill make Rage to Live one of the more distinguished biographies of late.

From Publishers Weekly

Celebrated and excoriated during his lifetime, Sir Richard Francis Burton (1821-1890) was among the most eminent of Victorians. Soldier, spy, diplomat, linguist, scholar and translator of erotic fiction, he lived several lives at once. Lovell (Straight on Till Morning) chronicles his varied life and adds that of his wife, Isabel Arundell (1831-1891), a member of a prominent English Catholic family. By the time Burton married Arundell in 1861, he was famous for traveling alone and in disguise to Mecca (forbidden to non-Muslims) and for his even more spectacular expeditions in East Africa. Though welcome in high society, the Burtons seemed happier abroad, traveling as far afield as Brazil, Syria and Iceland. In the 1880s, Burton pursued an almost obsessive interest in Eastern erotica, translating 1001 Nights, the Kama Sutra and The Scented Garden, and thereby earning the censure of respectable countrymen. Lovell contradicts the assumption that Burton was homosexual and his relationship with his wife sexless; and demonstrates how the marriage was marked throughout by an equality rare in Victorian times. A judicious, self-effacing biographer, Lovell generally resists the temptation to intrude into the narrative, but she sometimes speculates where primary material is absent. She is best at recounting the Burtons' lives as history but weaker at explicating characterAperhaps unavoidable given her subjects' guardedness. For all his restless accomplishment, Burton seems, judging from the evidence here, to have had a void at his center, an inability to connect to others. In this book, the Burtons remain curiously remote, never quite fulfilling the promise of the title. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 910 pages
• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc (October 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393046729
• ISBN-13: 978-0393046724
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.2 x 2.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #926,050 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Rage to Live - Life of Isabel & Richard Burton..., March 12, 1999

By	Edward Duffy ([e-mail]) (Hawaii) - See all my reviews

Mary Lovell's book about the life of Richard and Isabel Burton is a rather hefty tome which brings an interesting aspect to the fascinating life of one of the most interesting characters of the 19th Century - Captain, Sir Richard Francis Burton. Namely the interaction between Richard and his "adoring" wife, Isabel, which previous biographers have overlooked, or only mentioned in passing. According to Ms. Lovell, she managed to uncover new aspects of Richard's and Isabel's life together from previously unknown manuscripts and journals long thought destroyed. The result is a complete and thorough rendering of his life and Isabel's influence on it during their marriage and even beyond. One cannot help but admire Richard Burton, his accomplishments - he spoke 29 languages and 12 dialects fluently - his literary, scientific, ethnological, geographical, and sexual observations of those societies he happened to come into contact with. Ms. Lovell does an admirable job with a mountain of research, prodigious footnotes and exhaustive quotations. She weaves a excellent story of this enigmatic character and the woman who ministered to him till his death in 1890. My only frustration with the book came with all of the myriad quotations interspersed throughout the story. I found these oftentimes lengthy extracts interfering with the flow of the narrative. For someone not familar with the Burton's, a better introduction would be Fawn Brodie's, "The Devil Drives." It is a much easier read, although not as complete as Ms. Lovell's well constructed publication. Aloha!

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An astonishing life, definitely a keeper, June 12, 2002

By	A. Woodley "Patroness, Janeites, the Austen list" (New Zealand) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: A Rage to Live: A Biography of Richard and Isabel Burton (Paperback)

I have very much enjoyed Lovell's previous biographys (on Jane Digby and on the Mitford family) firstly because she goes all out to uncover new material, secondly because of her meticulous detailing of all sources - especially when going against the traditional view of previous writers, and lastly because I think she makes her subjects real and therefore an incredibly good read. She certainly does that with the Burtons - necessarily so because both Isabel and Richard Burton led full and active lives (it seems almost to be underselling the incredibly contributions they made to Victorian society) and the 700 odd pages which Lovell uses to talk about them barely seems enough.

Having read the other reader reviews on this book I was struck by one person opining that there wasn't enough discussion on Burton's books in here. I would say that there is enough. This is a biography and it covers an awful lot of ground. Each of Burton's books was about his travel, and each trip is minutely detailed in which Lovell uses not just his books, but his notes, his letters, and other sources to track not just his trips, but the dynamics of his relationships with others. I also think it is fair to say that Lovell has talked about the impact his books made on society - certainly many of his books are still in print and in some cases are still used as text books in modern Eastern study as they are still considered relevant.

Both the Burton's come alive under Lovell's pen. Isabel's intense love for Burton - and his for her. Lovell is careful in discussing each of Burton's controversies in life such as his falling out with Speke, and his inability to seem to get on with other men (Rigby, Playfair, the Ambassador while as Consul in Damascus and so on). Again these petty political battles are carefully detailed and the entire growth of each situation shown. Lovell demonstrates how many of Burton's strengths were also his greatest failings. He had a huge intellect, great intellegence but little patience and diplomacy to follow his calling in the Foreign Office. His energy was generally spent on his exploring in which he was ably supported and often accompanied by his wife, Isabel. Certainly with as many enemies as Burton managed to make, coupled with his ironic sense of humour he managed to leave behind a mythology of a rather horrid nature what he did and didn't do. He was fond of telling self-deprecating stories to people - at the expense of his reputation. Lovell has sifted through these rumours and misinformation to find the real man and his exploits underneath. These are no less amazing only less voilent.

Burton was a scholar and a linguist of some note. While in India he learnt a number of the major dialects and would have been officially noted as the foremost scholar in the field had not professional jealousies prevented him from being credited with his last language exams. Certainly he passed top in his class in each of his exams. He opened up inner Africa for future European explorers making it possible for them to confirm the source of the Nile, he also was the first European to make the Haj as a disguised as a muslim - and these are just a few of the explorations he undertook.

I think Isabel comes off a lot better under Lovell's pen than I have read about her before. She has also suffered a great deal of bad press in the past - again her own deeds are obfuscated by rumour and dislike. She was not the most likeable woman in the world, but in conclusion I did feel she was the only woman who could have matched Burton, especially in that stultifying conventional world which Victorian England limited their women to inhabiting.

I really enjoyed this book. It was a long read - hard to do with a young baby handing around - but each chapter was almost like a new story. Lovell was excellent in tying each chapter in the Burton's life together into a fresh story - a fresh outlook on the Burton's altogether a satisfying read.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not Perfect, but there is no option for 4.5 stars, March 7, 2005

By	Daniel Graf "Daniel Graf" (Tuscaloosa, Alabama) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: A Rage to Live: A Biography of Richard and Isabel Burton (Paperback)

A Rage to Live by Mary Lovell is an outstanding biography of both Sir Richard and the Lady Burton. Burton is about the only person that I have bothered to read multiple biograhies of. He was so complex and his life was just THAT interesting! There are a few other treatments of Sir Richard still in print, and Lovell takes these into account in her own telling. A great deal of data are available for the first time in this book, and the author uses this information adroitly to clear up long-standing misconceptions (and outright slanders) of both Burtons.

Lovell provides a good bit of compelling discussion about the conflict between Burton and John Hanning Speke over the source of the Nile. It has been common for Burton biographers to over-simplify the nature of the disagreement: Burton thought the Nile originated in Lake Tanganyika, Speke argued for Victoria Nyanza. Not so! Speke only really WANTED the source of the Nile to be Victoria (the lake, not the queen), whereas Burton, a Man of Science, argued that the observations at hand were insufficient to decide one way or the other. With the available information, Burton understood that Tanganyika or some as yet unknown spring could still have been the head of the Nile. Lovell explains well the behind-the-scenes wrangling at the Royal Geographical Society by Burton's detractors to back Speke as much out of spite as any other reason.

What really compelled me to read A Rage to Live -- besides what might best be called an obsession of the man -- was my desire to learn more about the Lady Burton, Isabel. She was an independent and interesting person herself, but she has been abused at the hands of other Burton biographers. To them, Isabel was an over-zealous Catholic, the schemer ready to use her influence and Richard's name for her own advancement, and the arsonist of Burton's papers and manuscript of the Scented Garden. Lovell makes the case that this is hogwash, the previous biographers have given too much credit to the bigoted opinions of Richard's spinster niece. Among the new information provided by Lovell's research is the fact that Richard was instructing Isabel what to write on his behalf. She was very much his partner in all aspects of their life together, and Lovell's story does provide some justice for the Lady Burton. Most significantly, Lovell demonstrates that Isabel burned at Trieste what Richard had instructed her to burn, and that many important papers did indeed survive.

A Rage to Live is an enormous volume, more than 900 pages -- my train ride to and from work has been considerably lightened since I finished reading the book. It has the best maps of the recent Burton biographies, but the fewest illustrations. Sources are well documented. Previous reviewers have commented upon the state of the editing of this book; they make some good points. But speaking (NOT speke-ing) as someone who has tried to read everything that they can find by and about Sir Richard Francis Burton, Lovell's A Rage to Live is the best single source on the subject.