Sir Richard Francis Burton Novel

Burton, Sir Richard Francis (1821-1890), British explorer, Orientalist, and author, born in Torquay, Devonshire, and educated at the University of Oxford. In 1842 Burton joined the army of the East India Company, serving in Sindh, India, for seven years. During this period he mastered a number of Eastern languages in preparation for a series of journeys and explorations (a phenomenally talented linguist, he mastered some 25 languages during his life). In 1853, disguised as an Afghan pilgrim, he made the pilgrimage to Medina and Mecca, being one of the first Europeans to enter those cities. His next journey was into Somaliland, a region that few Europeans had penetrated. In 1854 he explored Somaliland with the British explorer John Hanning Speke.

After service in the Crimean War, Burton returned to Africa in 1856 with Speke, in an attempt to find the source of the Nile. Together they located Lake Tanganyika in 1858; Speke alone located Lake Victoria. After 1861 Burton was a member of the British diplomatic service, stationed in Fernando Póo; Santos, Brazil; Damascus; and Trieste. He was knighted in 1886.

Burton is also well known for his definitive translation (16 vols., 1885-1888) of the collection of Oriental tales known as the Arabian Nights. Among his other works are Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El Medina and Mecca (1855), First Footsteps in East Africa (1856), The Lake Regions of Central Africa (1860), Wanderings in West Africa (1863), and studies of Brazil, Paraguay, Syria, Zanzibar, Etruscan Bologna, and the Gold Coast. He wrote 43 original books in all, as well as publishing some 30 translations. Tragically, after his death in Trieste, his wife burned the diaries and journals he had written over the previous 40 years.
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