Product Description

Richard Burton was a brilliant, charismatic man - a unique blend of erudite scholar and daring adventurer. Fluent in twenty-nine languages, he found it easy to pass himself off as a native, thereby gaining unique insight into societies otherwise closed to Western scrutiny. He followed service as an intelligence officer in India by a daring penetration of the sacred Islamic cities of Mecca and Medina disguised as a pilgrim. He was the first European to enter the forbidden African city of Harar, and discovered Lake Tanganyika in his search for the source of the Nile. His fascination with, and research into, the intimate customs of ethnic races (which would eventually culminate in his brilliant Kama Sutra) earned him a racy reputation in that age of sexual repression. Little surprise, then, that Isabel Arundell's aristocratic mother objected to her daughter's marriage to this most notorious of figures. Isabel, however, was a spirited, independent-minded woman and was also deeply, passionately in love with Richard. Against all expectations but their own, the Burtons enjoyed a remarkably successful marriage.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #19237 in Books
• Published on: 1999-10-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 928 pages

Review
'Scholarly ... Fabulous ... The biography shines its light on that remorselessly interesting period of British history, the Victorian era' TELEGRPAH 'A monumentual biography' THE TIMES 'Gripping' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 'A RAGE TO LIVE is a splendid and very enjoyable book. Mary S Lovell does her hero and heroine proud' LITERARY REVIEW 'A readable, lovingly researched exploration of the parallel lives of this controversial couple.' THE SPECTATOR 'No detail of the Burton's story is neglected, no date ignored, no symptom of sickness undiagnosed.' INDEPENDENT 'Lovell makes you want to be him. To reduce grown men to the status of wide-eyed schoolboys is a magnificent achievement.' SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY

THE TIMES
'A monumental biography'

SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
'Gripping'

Customer Reviews

Scholarly and personal
This is a wonderful biography which portrays the Burtons well-travelled lives as a a couple, rather than focusing only on Richard. Mary Lovell has had access to papers and letters unavailable to previous biographers and has re-read the existing material. While minutely researched and scholarly, it is also a warm and personal story of two very alive people with a hunger for knowledge and experience exploring the world together. She feels a closeness to her subjects which is always apparent in the book without becoming cloying. Burton was the archetypal Victorian adventurer, beginning his career as an officer in the East India company and serving as consul in different parts of the world while pursuing his alternative careers of writing and exploration. Often in conflict with his superiors, a rebel and not an easy man to know. His books often throw light on little-known areas, male brothels in India, for example, which interested him as an anthropologist. As an adventure story alone the book is hard to put down. But the chief fascination lies in the intimate picture of this couple who had such a rage to live, and whom you feel you know by the end. Mary Lovell has struck the right balance of scholarship and personal warmth.