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- The 19th Century was a fascinating time. One of the most colorful characters from that era, who's little remembered now (though he still has some ardent fans), was Richard Francis Burton[1] -- adventurer, explorer, spy, translator, ethnologist, linguist who spoke 29 languages, geologist and botanist, sword master (an art he wrote a treatise on), sexologist, physician and poet.
He was the first European to see the holy cities of Mecca and Medina and live to tell the tale, something he accomplished by disguising himself as and adopting the language and customs of a wandering Dervish -- a daring feat which risked certain death if he was discovered. He managed to repeat the feat with various other forbidden cities around the world, though not without injury.
He produced, to my mind, by far the most entertaining (though apparently far from accurate) translation of the Thousand and One Nights, and the erotic classic, the Kama Sutra, along with various other works.
"Throughout his life, Burton continually sought passionately for "Gnosis," which he pursued around the world in myriad forms. He was a student of the Kaballah and of Hermeticism. He was an initiated Nagar Brahmin and Kadiri Dervish; he became a member of the Ismaili sect, which claimed decent from the Assassins; and he was at various times a formal convert to Hinduism, Tantrism, Roman Catholicism, Sikhism and Islam."[2]
He was a founder of The Cannibal Club[3], where men (of course they were all men) could openly discuss "subjects deemed deviant by society".
He was also a through and unapologetic racist and colonialist, almost to the point of caricature, which makes his works (which typically contain many personal notes and digressions) hard to swallow for most modern readers.
After his death, his wife burned much of his unpublished work and diaries (presumably because of their frank sexual content), so we may never see his most scandalous work.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Francis_Burton
- See, for example, the troubles the noted explorer and translator Sir Richard Burton had. His translations of the Kama Sutra and 1001 Arabian Nights were considered scandalous in Victorian England.
He was an undaunted explorer and traveled widely and spoke 29 languages. He wrote extensively, but sadly his widow considered some of his papers too explicit to be published after his death and instead destroyed them.
His search for the headwaters of the Nile are the basis for the film Mountains of the Moon . See [1].
[1] Historical Badass: Explorer Sir Richard Francis Burton
- I'd recommend the travel writing of Richard Francis Burton: adventurer, spy, scholar, and all-around erudite Victorian badass.[1]
Burton was famous for being the first non-muslim to see Mecca and Medina (which he did in disguise), when the penalty for non-mulsims entering the holy cities was death. He did the same in other dangerous places as well, taking similar risks. Burton also wrote a famous translation of the Thousand and One Nights (aka Arabian Nights)[2], translated the Kama Sutra and other works.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Francis_Burton
[2] - Burton's is by far my favorite translation of the Thousand and One Nights. You can read it for free at Project Gutenberg.[3]
