"Brilliant. . . . [Brodie's] scholarship is wide and searching, and her understanding of Burton and his wife both deep and wide. She writes with clarity and zest. The result is a first class biography of an exceptional man."--J. H. Plumb, New York Times Book Review

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The man who searched for the source of the Nile, became the first non-Moslem to visit Mecca, and translated the Arabian nights, among other adventures.

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.

This fictionalized account imagines the life of Sir Richard Francis Burton--a 19th-century British colonial officer and translator with a rare ability to assimilate into indigenous cultures.

FROM REVIEWS OF THE ORIGINAL EDITION: "Burton's own narratives...are classics of travel. Best known is the account of his journey to Medina and Mecca, closed to non-Muslims.... As Hayman observes, [Burton] reveals his volatile temper as well as his amazing capacity to assimilate information which must have been retained in his head, as no writing was permitted."--"History Today "Burton's lectures...give the full flavor of both his fierce temperament and his fiercer curiosity."--"Los Angeles Times

Though best remembered as an adventurer who entered Mecca in disguise and sought the source of the White Nile, Richard Burton contributed so forcefully to his generation that he provides us with a singularly panoramic perspective on the world of the Victorians. Engagingly written and vigorously argued, this book is an important contribution to our understanding of a remarkable man and a crucial era.