Book 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.
A former accountant and Company Director, Mary Lovell now lists her
chief interests as horses, sailing, aviation and book collecting. She
enjoys overseas travel and is a fellow of the Royal Geographical
Society. She is the author of five previous biographies including the
international bestseller STRAIGHT ON TILL MORNING: The Biography of
Beryl Markham.
