A Rage to Live: A Biography of Richard and Isabel Burton - Softcover

Lovell, Mary S.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393320391 ISBN 13: 9780393320398

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2000

Synopsis

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. Illustrated

About this title

Review

More than a century after their deaths, Richard and Isabel Burton are legend. Sir Richard Burton was a prolific writer, an insatiable explorer, a linguist, and a translator who pursued controversy and risk as surely as adventure. In 1853, disguised as an Afghani doctor, he became one of the first Europeans to enter the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina. He later led an expedition to discover the source of the Nile--whether he got there first was later protractedly disputed. He spoke dozens of languages and translated the erotic works The Arabian Nights, The Kama Sutra, and The Perfumed Garden into English, making him fall afoul of the National Vigilance Society and the Society for the Suppression of Vice. Isabel, for her part, defied her upper-crust family to marry Richard and lead the "wild, roving, vagabond life" she had dreamed of as a stifled young lady. She was her husband's collaborator, editor, and most vehement advocate. She defended his oft-besmirched reputation, promoted his writing, successfully campaigned to make him knighted--even arranged a dinner with the queen. After Richard's death, Isabel came under fire for burning his papers, including the Kama Sutra translation. This double biography by Mary S. Lovell (biographer, too, of Amelia Earhart, Beryl Markham, and Jane Digby) attempts to dispel many of the myths that have grown up around the pair of famous Victorians. She defends Isabel's burning her husband's papers as an act designed to protect his reputation and privacy. Lovell points out that even after their being burned, more of Richard's papers remained than were left by many of his contemporaries. And she cites them as primary source material for the book. Lovell also strenuously contradicts the long-held belief that Richard was gay--his interest in and writings about male sexuality, she believes, were borne purely of anthropological research. The Burtons, she assures readers, had an ideal marriage in every way, but she offers little supporting material to prove her claim. Lovell's views seem sometimes to be colored by her adoration for her subjects. But the obvious breadth of her research and her narrative skill make Rage to Live one of the more distinguished biographies of late.

About the Author

Mary S. Lovell's best-selling biographies include Straight on Till Morning (Beryl Markham) and The Sisters (the Mitford family). She lives in England.

Edition details

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0393320391
• ISBN 13: 9780393320398
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 946