Kudos to Farwell for his insightful biography of one of the most charismatic figures of the 19th century British Empire. Richard Francis Burton has always been one of my personal heroes and the author has done a fine job of bringing the exploits and foibles of this extrordinary soldier, spy, rogue, linguist, explorer, and author, to light.

I have read several biographies of Burton and this is by far the best. Byron Farwell has produced an excellent biography of a unique Victorian who led a life of incredible energy and movement. In fact, Burton seemed to find it impossible to stay in one place. Not always a likeable fellow, Burton lived for adventure. His dangerous journey into the Islamic holy city of Mecca , dressed as a Muslim and speaking fluent Arabic, vies with his discovery of Lake Tanganyika (with Speke) as the most famous of his exploits. But Farwell also describes many less well known adventures - Burton travelled to Salt Lake City in 1859 where he interviewed Brigham Young. He was British Consul in West Africa, Damascus, and Santos, Brazil. Burton usually completely ignored any duties he was given by his employer (Farwell says he was "unemployable"). Incredibly, much of his exploring was done while on dubious sick leave from the Indian Army. Farwell brings out Burton as an explorer of cultures and a scholar as well as a geographic explorer - Burton translated the Arabian Nights and other major oriental works. I particularly enjoyed the chapters on Burton's early life, starting as an extremely naughty boy and maturing into an exceptional young swordsman who wrote a book on bayonet drill later adopted as the standard work by the British Army. Farwell is clearly fascinated, as well as sometimes exasperated by his subject.

Farwell's biography of the extrordinary life of Capt. Sir Richard F. Burton is a fine work. Farwell's excellent style and knowledge of the 19th century are perfect backdrops to the the exploits of "Ruffian Dick". The author manages to point out Burtons many talents and shortcomings in a fair, scholarly manner, without physco-babble or hero-worship. Yet more importantly, Burton's life is allowed to unfold as what it truly was, a grand adventure, full of exotic places, eccentric characters, brilliant victories and stinging defeats. Many biographies have been written concerning Burton, many are very good, but Farwell has managed to bring to life this truly larger then life personality

I found this novel a delightful and interesting read. The inclusion of Buddhist spirituality, an amazingly international array of characters (even a Chinese Muslim (Uighur) tavernkeeper), and emphasis on the Native American experience, make this novel deeper and more meaningful than most other novels set in the American West. Though the plot is intriguing, the novel is at its best in depicting its colorful and diverse characters (Taylor, buoyant half-Indian, with a passion for music, who pairs up with Sun moon, beautiful Tibetan nun)and settings, from a Digger Indian village to Mormon Utah. Despite its realistic depictions of the racism and violence of the period, the story remains light-hearted and humorous. Sir Richard Burton, Nile explorer and drug addict, was particularly enjoyable. It would have been more interesting if his Sufi beliefs were explored a bit further, but of course he was somewhat of a side character.

Everything about this book kis great. Awesome and *original* story line, interesting historical facts, and wild adventure. This is the first book I've ever read by Blevins, and now I can't wait to order his other books, pronto. If you like historically based novels and unique :-) story lines, this is the book for you.

This book is a first person account of a perilous journey taken across the wild west. What makes this book unique is the company the teller keeps. A half breed of unknown origins is the teller, and he is in the company of a Tibetan nun whom he has fallen in love with, and a spy for the British--who's secretly practicing a 'heathen' religion! If you like westerns...try this one! It's a western with a twist!

Can you help? PBS ran a series on this subject some years ago. I'd like to find a copy.

Sir Richard Burton was a true legend -- he spoke more than 25 languages, travelled to all sorts of remote places, and had a fascinating life. If you enjoy armchair travel books, this one if for you. Rice travelled extensively in the 10 years it took him to research Burton's life. Burton has many "firsts" to his name: the first European to look for the source of the Nile, the first to discover Lake Tanganyika, the first to disguise himself and visit Medina and Mecca, and the list goes on. If not for Burton, we would not have the Kama Sutra nor the tales from Arabian Nights. You can just see Burton in his tent in Africa translating and keeping diary notes. This is one of the most interesting biographies I have ever read. A true adventurer.

The book is a detailed chronological account of nearly three years of difficult travel between Zanzibar and Lake Tanganyika, circa the late 1850's. Nothing escapes Burton's observation. He writes of everything from the local hairstyles to the price of pombe (African beer). He gives detailed descriptions of the landscape, geography, flora, and fauna. He writes of Arabs and the Eastern slave trade. He depicts safari life in the days of human porters and mules. He tells of the people he encounters, though his descriptions of Africans may be offensive to some. There is a wealth of information here, something for everyone with an interest in Eastern Africa, or exploration, or imperialism. The place names have sometimes changed from Burton's time to ours, as have the English spelling conventions of Swahili words. Anyone with any interest in Eastern Africa, especially the precolonial period, should arm themselves with a good atlas and reference book and read Burton.

Burton led an amazing life of exploration and scholarship [he wrote "The Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El-Medinah and Meccah" after disguising himself as an Arab to travel to the sacred city; he visited Salt Lake City and wrote "City of the Saints"; after exploring in South America he wrote "Explorations of the Highlands of Brazil"; and he translated the "Arabian Nights" and poetry of Luís de Camões], still he may not be an easy writer to come to terms with for many contemporary readers. He is far from what we would call "politically correct". But he wrote so much and so well, and is practically the only writer to travel in Eastern Africa in the 1850's that is in print today (except for John Hanning Speke who was with him on this trip, and who wrote "Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile").

To put this book in context it is wise to read something about Burton, particulary Burton and Speke in Africa; know why in "Lake Regions" Burton never refers to Speke by name. (There are a few Burton biographies, and books about Burton and Speke; or see the movie: "Mountains of the Moon")

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...

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.

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 ! !

Very well researched, this book reads more like a textbook than a literary piece. One would expect more from an author of 20+ books, though laying out the vast amount of information Edward Rice has gathered is no easy task. Albeit we should pay tribute to his concern for accuracy and discussing different accounts of Burton's life, the reader is easily distracted by too many details and the author's constant digression. But if you're patient enough to get through, you'll be fascinated by the adventures of Sir Richard Burton and his erudition. A geographer, explorer, linguist, writer, soldier, diplomat and a spy, he traveled through four continents, describing in immeasurable detail the cultures, traditions and places he experienced.

Burton lived a remarkable life and this is the definitive account. If you want to go deep into his life and adventures this is the book to get. But if you're looking for some light reading or entertaining adventures, search somewhere else.

This is the way history should be written, as an interesting narrative. The author worked with a tremendous amount of source material to compose this biography of one of history's most important and fascinating characters. Where "facts" were in conflict, the author presneted multiple viewpoints. Suppositions were presented as such and not as facts.

Dick Burton is undoubtedly a larger than life historical figure, however, the author portrays him as human - both his faults and his strengths are exponded upon.

Much of the material is directly quoted from source material, which makes Burton and related individuals voices come alive.

My only criticism of the book is minor. There are some tangents that seem to me to be given too much space in the book. The author sometimes writes mini biographies of somewhat incidental characters. This is simply my opinion, and others may, and probably will disagree.

While this book is a biography, there is historical and thological gold there. Much can be learned about the 19th century Middle east, Africa and the politics of the time. Also, there is a lot of material about Islam and other religions that Burton studied.

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. But 'The Arabian Nights' only scratches the surface of his many translations from eastern literature - 'The Kama Sutra of Vatsyaya' and 'The Perfumed Garden of the Cheikh Nefzaoui: A Manual of Arabian Erotology', to name an infamous few...

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.

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.

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!

Although this is a highly detailed chronology of Burton's life and writings, it can hardly be called a critical biography. There is little real discussion of Burton's writings; each publication is merely mentioned. Over a hundred years after his death, Burton still has an impressive number of works in print, but to get a sense of his style you'll have to read him, not Lovell. One of the main focuses of the book, as the title implies, is to rehabiliatate Isabel's reputation, which fell into tatters shortly after Burton's death when she was accused of burning important papers, and admitted to burning both of the manuscripts of what was his last major work, The Scented Garden, ostensibly because it discussed homosexuality. Although Lovell tries mightily, she fails to improve Isabel's image--to me at least--beyond that of a woman who determined, correctly, that marriage to Burton would faciliate an active and interesting life for her, who was somewhat obsessive about her husband, and who guarded his memory like a junkyard dog. Still, an interesting read, because his was an interesting life.

This is an adult version of the Arabian Nights tales that most kids grow up with. By adult I do not mean that it contains a lot of sexual material, however there is some, so this book is probably not appropriate for children. Stories like "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" and "Aladdin and the Magic Lamp" are included in here, along with some more obscure stories like "The Hunchback's Tale". If you're interested in learning about stories from the middle east, this is the book for you.

This is a sometimes brutal, mostly wonderful, anthology of tales weaved into the story of a corageous young woman who uses her enchanting narration as a means of survival. All of the magical stories take place in a long gone world with cultural differences that might offend sensitive readers. Yet the morals of the book never clash with our present values and it provides us with a look into a world since forgotten. The tales and fables are ingeniously connected, stories within stories, and are captivating and full of fantastic characters, wonderful places and legendary creatures. This is the source of many common children stories such as Aladin and the Genie, The travels of Sinbad, and Ali-Baba and the forty thieves. I recomend it as a nightly read for small children during story time, with a small warning for mature content.

We are all familiar with the stories of Ali Baba, Aladdin, and Sinbad. But where did these tales come from? The answer lies in this wonderful (condensed) volume known as the 'Arabian Nights.'
The story is of a woman, Scheherazade, who marries a king. The king's custom is to spend one night with a woman and execute her in the morning. To avoid this, Scheherazade tells him a tale, but leaves part of it unfinished, thus gaining the king's interest and insuring her survival for another day so she can finish the tale. Being clever, she never finishes it, but keeps it continuously going, until the king finally spares her life.
The stories presented here, though often somewhat crude, have great moral lessons to be learned. The serve as a sort of moral reminder as to how a good person should act.
When Richard Burton translated the Nights, he collected as many manuscripts as possible and pieced together the tales. Many had been created centuries earlier, and were often told during gatherings among friends. Burton, through his unparalelled knack for translation, managed to capture all the magic and mystery that are the Arabian Nights.
Besides the delightful stories and good lessons to be learned, the Nights serve another purpose--they provide an intimate look at the culture of the time. By examining their legends, one can gain a basic understanding of how Arabic culture functions. There is as much to be learned about the people who tell these stories as there is from the stories themselves.
I read this book for historical and cultural value, and found it to be abundant in both. Besides that, though, I encountered a mesmerizing set of tales which will be entertaining to any audience, even (after some revision and editing) children.

If this man had never existed, Hollyweird could do a movie of some of his exploits and it would be considered over the top. He was fully a man both of his era and beyond it. His time in Africa alone was amazing, despite the fact that he and his fellow travelers did not find the source of the Nile river. That said, this is one of the better overall biographies of Sir Burton. The author has a good feel for the overall tone and prejuidices of the era and how Sir Burton did not fit in in polite English society. How much did I like this book, well I had read it years ago and decided I had to have a copy to keep. If true history with all its faults and wonders is something you enjoy, you need to read this book. For all that, I didn't even mention that he was an extraordinarily talented linquist as well as an author.

Soon after graduating from high school many decades ago, it was my good fortune to discover Sir Richard Francis Burton, one of the great explorer/intellects of any age. That was a major turning point in my life. Burton inspired in me passions to achieve beyond the ordinary. Later, I became a scientist and, perhaps because I had imprinted upon Burton at a formative stage of my life, was able to open hitherto unexplored intellectual domains of my own.

I was eager to learn everything I could about Burton. Along the way, I discovered Fawn Brodie's book on Burton, a carefully-researched work that draws upon a wealth of historical data in depicting Burton's life and accomplishments. With a fast-paced, fascinating writing style that impels the reader forward page after page, Brodie takes us through Burton's own early formative years, his adventures in India, his pilgrimages to the forbidden cities of Mecca and Harar, his exploration for the source of the Nile, his rivalry with fellow explorer and nemesis, John Hanning Speke, his marriage to Isabel, and his profound accomplishments as an intellect and writer. Brodie's is a masterful work that compelled me to reread it many times down through the years. In fact, I read it so many times that it finally fell apart. I was delighted to find it for sale on Amazon, and recently purchased a new copy to replace the tattered old companion.

Those who wish to learn about Burton from a renowned scholar and historian are likely to treasure Brodie's book that has received many splendid reviews.

Soon after graduating from high school many decades ago, it was my good fortune to discover Sir Richard Francis Burton, one of the great explorer/intellects of any age. That was a major turning point in my life. Burton inspired in me passions to achieve beyond the ordinary. Later, I became a scientist and, perhaps because I had imprinted upon Burton at a formative stage of my life, was able to open hitherto unexplored intellectual domains of my own.

I was eager to learn everything I could about Burton. Along the way, I discovered Fawn Brodie's book on Burton, a carefully-researched work that draws upon a wealth of historical data in depicting Burton's life and accomplishments. With a fast-paced, fascinating writing style that impels the reader forward page after page, Brodie takes us through Burton's own early formative years, his adventures in India, his pilgrimages to the forbidden cities of Mecca and Harar, his exploration for the source of the Nile, his rivalry with fellow explorer and nemesis, John Hanning Speke, his marriage to Isabel, and his profound accomplishments as an intellect and writer. Brodie's is a masterful work that compelled me to reread it many times down through the years. In fact, I read it so many times that it finally fell apart. I was delighted to find it for sale on Amazon, and recently purchased a new copy to replace the tattered old companion.

Those who wish to learn about Burton from a renowned scholar and historian are likely to treasure Brodie's book that has received many splendid reviews.

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