A Rage to Live: A Biography of Richard and Isabel Burton
A Rage to Live: A Biography of Richard and Isabel Burton
Author: Mary S. Lovell
Desc: 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.