Burton: Snow upon the Desert

by Frank McLynn

A centennial biography which draws on new material from untapped manuscript sources in order to clarify events in Richard Burton's life hitherto hardly dealt with. The author offers a challenging and original psychological portrait of this poet, scholar, soldier, archaeologist and explorer. Richard Burton discovered Lake Tanganyika and took part in the notorious search for the source of the Nile. He risked death visiting the sacred place of Mecca, disguised as a Muslim, and again penetrating the forbidden city of Harar. He travelled extensively in North and South America, India, Europe and the Middle East. A talented translator, he produced English versions of Camoens's "Lusiads", the "Kama Sutra" and, most famously, "The Arabian Nights". However, if the public man had to his credit so many resounding achievements, the private man was tortured, divided, and deeply ambivalent. Politically reactionary and a hater of women, blacks, sociologists, egalitarians, Jews and the Irish, Burton was a mass of contradictions. Frank McLynn is a biographer and historian and has also published "Charles Edward A Tragedy in Many Acts" and " The Making of an African Explorer".

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, History

428 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 1991

About the author

Frank McLynn is an English author, biographer, historian and journalist. He is noted for critically acclaimed biographies of Napoleon Bonaparte, Robert Louis Stevenson, Carl Jung, Richard Francis Burton and Henry Morton Stanley.

McLynn was educated at Wadham College, Oxford and the University of London. He was Alistair Horne Research Fellow at St Antony's College, Oxford (1987–88) and was visiting professor in the Department of Literature at the University of Strathclyde (1996–2001) and professorial fellow at Goldsmiths College London (2000 - 2002) before becoming a full-time writer.

Reviews

[Hugh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the best kind of Christmas present - a book I would never have chosen for myself but a fascinating read. Burton was almost beyond parody as a Victorian caricature - on the one hand a polymath who neared greatness in disparate fields such as languages, exploration, anthropology and many other areas of arcane knowledge, but also an intolerant egotistical bigot who made enemies easily, oscillated between extremes and frequently undermined himself. McLynn has synthesised this material into a surprisingly nuanced, entertaining and coherent portrait.

[Pablo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tons of info, but presented as just a mass of information. Filled with weird statements with no supporting info such as -" Sexual restlessness plus the need for constant excitement often take humans into the study of languages or the exploration of unknown territories. " Say what ? Weird book! 2 stars

[MasterSal]

Nov 2020: so the only thing I know about Richard Burton is that he did the original Arabian Nights translation and “added” stuff to it.

I may be completely wrong so probably all the more reason to read this ...

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent bio of the great Captain. Speculation about his sex life/orientation. His poor wife!

[Christine Harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this historical research on a very extrodinary man.

[Barnaby · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid biography with a lot of additional speculation...Burton was sexually attracted to monkeys? Right then! Still, this reads very well and is a good look at one of the most entertaining and brilliant men of the nineteenth century.