A Rage to Live: A Biography of Richard and Isabel Burton [Paperback]

Mary S. Lovell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 2000

An "extraordinary biography" (New York Times Book Review) of a brilliant pair of adventurers.

Their marriage was both improbable and inevitable. Isabel Arundell was a schoolgirl, the scion of England's most distinguished Catholic family. When she first saw him while walking at a seaside resort, Richard Burton had already made his mark as a linguist (he was fluent in twenty-nine languages), scholar, soldier, and explorer--at once a symbol of Victorian England's vision of empire and an avowed rebel against its mores. When she turned and saw him staring after her, she decided that she would marry him. By their next meeting, Burton had become the first infidel to infiltrate Mecca as one of the faithful, and, in an expedition to discover the source of the Nile, would soon be the first white man to see Lake Tanganyika. After being married, the Burtons traveled and experienced the world, from diplomatic postings in Brazil and Africa to hair-raising adventures in the Syrian desert. In later life Richard courted further controversy as a self-proclaimed erotologist and the translator of The Kama Sutra. Based on previously unavailable archives, Mary Lovell has written a compelling joint biography that sets Isabel in her proper place as Burton's equal in daring and endurance, a fascinating figure in her own right. Illustrated

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. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 944 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (August 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393320391
• ISBN-13: 978-0393320398
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #703,543 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Rage to Live - Life of Isabel & Richard Burton..., March 11, 1999

By 

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

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

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!

17 of 17 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 1000 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.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Rage to Write, January 24, 2001

By 

Sylvia Roupe - See all my reviews

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

I want to give this book 4 stars, I truly do. Having read Lovell's truly stunning biography of Beryl Markham, I looked forward to this one. While the Markham biography, Straight on Till Morning is fresh, fascinating and fast-moving, this dual biography was in desperate need of an editor courageous enough to tell the writer half the text needed to go.

Having said that, however, I want immediately to add that once I got past the first few chapters, I DID get caught up on the utterly fabulous tale of Richard Burton's amazing life. Quite simply, there is no one in our world with whom to compare him. The redeeming value of Lovell's far too detailed description of his life is that -- at the end of the book -- you feel as if you have travelled with him.

Isabel is amazing in so many ways, but unfortunately, while Lovell goes to lengths extraordinaire to exclaim about Richard, she fails to point out just how truly remarkable and ahead of her time was Isabel.

The author is clearly enamored of the two of them and goes to great lengths to try to de-bunk the conclusions of other Burton scholars. Unfortunately, after a while her defenses become tiresome. Enough already. Enough and more than enough writing.

This is yet another example of what happens when the publishing world decides that editors are redundant. Had this mss been given the editing it deserved it could have been one of the great biographies of the past 10 years.