Rating: 
Summary: Man's Man - Ladie's Man - His Own Man
Review: Richard Burton - hero, soldier, explorer, geographer, adventurer, swordsman, master of disguise, linguist, prolific writer, poet, lover of women - in no certain order, is the one man in history that I most regret having never met. If there is one person in history that I would have followed to the ends of the earth, Burton is man. I've read many of Burton's works, each one leading me inexorably to the next. For anyone interested in Burton, I highly recommend this biography by Rice. The edition reveals many facts about Burton that I wish I'd known before reading Burton's own works. As I mentioned above, I'd have followed him to the ends of the earth - confident that he'd have gotten us back alive - with fasinating stories to tell!
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting Person -- Not So Interesting Biography
Review: Richard Francis Burton is a giant figure in history, an amazing individual whose originality and bravery stood out in Victorian England. Although you'd think it would be tough to make the man who introduced the Kama Sutra to the West boring, that's exactly what Edward Rice succeeds in doing. The writing itself is not bad, but the narrative of Burton's life seems to wander aimlessly, as if the complexity of the man overwhelmed the biographer. I'm normally a fan of big, dense histories, but I almost couldn't get through this one, which is a rarity for me. Take a pass on this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Burton, Richard Burton
Review: Sir Richard Francis Burton spoke, proficiently, over twenty languages. A prolific writer and skilled translator, he wrote a very large number of books on the most diverse subjects (history, religion, geography, travel, sexology, ethnography, etc.); introduced the Kama Sutra to the West and translated from Arabic the Book of A Thousand Night and a Night (the Thousand and One Nights). He was also an explorer, soldier, fencing expert and, specially, a secret agent. He visited, a hundred and fifty years ago, some of the farthest corners of India, Africa, and South America, travelling, in most cases, through hostile and uncharted territories. He was one of the few Westerners who entered (and survived) the sacred Islamic city of Mecca, disguised as an Arab, and he was the first one to enter the forbidden city of Harar, in the heart of Africa. With a personal history like this (yes, it is all real, and there is more) it seems to me that even the least competent biographer would write an interesting book. Edward Rice, however, is more than a competent biographer and his book is really good. He describes in detail the adventurous and turbulent life of Burton, providing useful commentaries on the places Burton went to, the nature of the religions he became initiated in and contemporary society in general. Throughout the book it is evident that he researched intensely and that he visited some of the places where Burton lived. He is also objective to his subject, always justifying his statements with information. The book is clearly written and never boring. I am sure it is one of the best biographies of Captain Burton.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Life in the Great Game
Review: Soldier, spy, swordsman, linguist, proto-anthropologist, adventurer, explorer, eroticist, prolific writer and poet, and seeker after hidden gnosis - Richard Francis Burton was all of this and more. While no single biography can capture the entirety of this amazing life, Edward Rice's book is an insightful, fascinating treatment of this larger than life man, and deserves to be read by all who wish to know Burton.
While Rice's book covers the whole of Burton's life and career, its concentration and strengths are on his period of greatest adventuring and exploring, from his introduction to India and the East as a soldier and spy for the East India Company, through his exploits in Arabia, and his explorations in Africa. Rice lingers long over Burton's wanderings in India, exploring in depth how Burton immersed himself in Eastern languages, customs, religions, and thought until he could easily pass himself off as a native. Burton's most famous exploits - the pilgrimage to Mecca disguised as an Arab, penetrating the sacred and forbidden city of Harar in East Africa (the first European to do so), and his explorations of Central Africa, searching for the source of the Nile, are all covered in depth, with great detail.
Rice takes the time to concentrate on two of the more shadowy aspects of Burton's life - his participation in the "Great Game"; spying for the British Empire, and his personal search after gnosis, the hidden wisdom of life. Often these pursuits were intertwined, as when his initiations into secret Hindu and Sufi sects served both to further his personal quest for gnosis, and to give him cover and openings for his espionage activities.
Also well covered are Burton's greatest literary achievements His superb annotated translation of the Arabian Nights (for which he was knighted), his translation of The Perfumed Garden, and his original Sufi poem, The Kasidah, are given particular attention, but much of his prolific literary production is also noted.
This book has its weaknesses, but they are slight. It starts out rather slowly, as Rice give outstanding background information on the British Empire in India, which while valuable, momentarily distracts the story away from Burton's amazing life. Also, it seems that Rice so admired his subject that he could not bear to show him in any but the best light. In every major controversy of Burton's career, Rice always favors Burton's side, almost to the point of occasionally glossing over some of Burton's very real flaws.
This book is a valuable addition to the Burton literature, and should be required reading for any Burton enthusiasts, or anyone who is a fan of remarkable lives of adventure.
Rating:
Summary: The Definitive Biography...
Review: This is by far one of the best biographies I've read in recent times. Not only is the subject matter astonishing, capturing the life of one of the most exciting figures of the 19th century, the author focuses on the man's profuse writings, thankfully leaving out the once fashionable psychoanalytic approach of interpretation when writing biography. This is the third life history I've read on Richard Burton, and it's certainly the finest written and the most thorough.Those of you, who are not familiar with R.F. Burton, are in for a thrilling reading experience. This man, probably more so than Byron himself, is the archetypal Byronic figure of the age: a linguist, (29 languages and numerous dialects), scholar of eastern literature and religion, particularly the mystical arm of Islam, Sufi; a practicing mystic; explorer of Africa (co-discoverer of the source of the Nile); a secret agent working for her majesty during England's acquisition of India's wealth, known to historians as 'The Great Game'. He was also one of the first white men, who made the Pilgrimage to Mecca, and as Rice argues, Burton was and continued to be a practicing Muslim, therefore his pilgrimage was deeply religious as well as a journey of danger and adventure. Burton was dashing, an expert swordsman and horseman, and a prolific writer, poet and translator who rank as one of the best of his time. Burton is known to most as one of the scholars who brought 'The Arabian Nights' to the West...he heard a lot of the tales through the Persian oral tradition; memorized them in their original language, and sat around many a camp fire in the desert, re-telling these wonderful stories to anyone who would listen. Burton was a storyteller in the truest sense. But 'The Arabian Nights' only scratches the surface of his many translations from eastern literature - 'The Kama Sutra of Vatsyaya' and 'The Perfumed Garden of the Cheikh Nefzaoui: A Manual of Arabian Erotology', to name an infamous few... What impressed me most about Burton was his alarming intellectual curiousity, his exhaustive industry as a recorder of foreign cultures. While other 'gentleman' of his time would rather murder the wildlife to take back to their drawing rooms, to then hang on their walls, Burton preferred to sketch and write about the places and people he came across in his travels to then share with the rest of us. He was an incessant scribbler. The man's thirst for life was daunting and this magnetic soul ensured he did not waste a minute of it... Edward Rice's ~Captain Sir Richard Frances Burton~ is the definitive biography.
Rating:
Summary: An important and enjoyable biography
Review: This is the way history should be written, as an interesting narrative. The author worked with a tremendous amount of source material to compose this biography of one of history's most important and fascinating characters. Where "facts" were in conflict, the author presneted multiple viewpoints. Suppositions were presented as such and not as facts. Dick Burton is undoubtedly a larger than life historical figure, however, the author portrays him as human - both his faults and his strengths are exponded upon. Much of the material is directly quoted from source material, which makes Burton and related individuals voices come alive. My only criticism of the book is minor. There are some tangents that seem to me to be given too much space in the book. The author sometimes writes mini biographies of somewhat incidental characters. This is simply my opinion, and others may, and probably will disagree. While this book is a biography, there is historical and thological gold there. Much can be learned about the 19th century Middle east, Africa and the politics of the time. Also, there is a lot of material about Islam and other religions that Burton studied.
Rating: 
Summary: Great research, poor writing
Review: Very well researched, this book reads more like a textbook than a literary piece. One would expect more from an author of 20+ books, though laying out the vast amount of information Edward Rice has gathered is no easy task. Albeit we should pay tribute to his concern for accuracy and discussing different accounts of Burton's life, the reader is easily distracted by too many details and the author's constant digression. But if you're patient enough to get through, you'll be fascinated by the adventures of Sir Richard Burton and his erudition. A geographer, explorer, linguist, writer, soldier, diplomat and a spy, he traveled through four continents, describing in immeasurable detail the cultures, traditions and places he experienced. Burton lived a remarkable life and this is the definitive account. If you want to go deep into his life and adventures this is the book to get. But if you're looking for some light reading or entertaining adventures, search somewhere else.
Rating:
Summary: The Devil's Spy
Review: Well if you are looking for something different. Burton is different. Anyone who has done a little reading about Victorian era travelers has heard his name mentioned many times, and anyone who has a copy of 1001 Arabian Nights may check to see if it's the Burton translation, mine is. Burton isn't better known as an explorer because he didn't make any of the important discoveries(unless you give him credit for finding the source of the Nile), he only made the most interesting discoveries because he was the most interesting of the travelers. It all began when he was stationed in colonial India and took a sick leave to travel and write his first book Goa Goa, about that famous sea port. He was not made famous by that book nor his other early books though his growing list of escapades were perhaps making him infamous. One of his assignments as a soldier was to explore the Indian sex industry resulting in an exaustive and detailed study of that topic, too detailed for his superiors taste. Later he would be famous for introducing the Kama Sutra to Victoria's England. The adventure that makes for the most exciting reading is his journey incognito to Mecca which had not yet been visited by someone not of the faith. The price for being caught would have been death. The cover of the book shows why Burton was not, he was a master of blending in and his mind which was an ever expanding archive of both western and eastern languages and religions was quite an asset as well. He was a collector of information all his life and the books he wrote sometimes suffer from a glut of facts but this biography gives you everything you need to know, unless you are a collector of cross continental minutia. His wife Isabel apparently burnt his unpublished manuscripts when he died because she did not want his already questionable reputation compromised further and it probably would have been then. But damn. He was buried in a stone version of the tent that he used in his African explorations. A certain kind of genius he was for walking the line between and among all cultures.
Rating:
Summary: A good look into the life of the greatest of adventurers
Review: What an arduous task this would be: to effectively compile in a single volume the life of one of the greatest adventurer/scholars of the last century. The man was Richard Burton, master of 29 languages, accomplished swordsman, soldier, and scholar, the man who penetrated the forbidden cities of Mecca, Medina, and Harar, and he who helped introduce The Arabian Nights to the western world.
Indeed, Burton was the stuff of legends, a man whose adventures and scholarly achievements have seldom been exceeded. Rice definitely had his hands full when he undertook this biography. For the most part, it is an able work, providing an interesting narrative and a good look into Burton's life. Surprisingly enough, Burton, who wrote so much about everything he observed, left surprisingly little about himself. For this reason, many details incident to his life must be left to speculation.
One of the strong points of Rice's book is that he reasonably limits his speculation. Though Rice often guesses about Burton's motives or actions, he never presents them as fact, and widely leaves it up to the reader to draw his or her own conclusions.
Another positive aspect of this book is it's focus on Burton's works. In fact, the book seems almost an annotated bibliography of sorts. As the story unfolds, the reader gets an idea of the circumstances relating to each of Burton's books, and this goes a long way in helping understand them.
So why only three stars? There are two reasons. The first is that the narrative is often somewhat ambiguous, and there are some subjects which are only alluded to (as with Burton's get-rich-quick schemes). Many anecdotes of Burton are poorly organized, almost rambling. At times, the story is very hard to follow.
This books greatest flaw is it's failure to cite sources. Though there is an enormous bibliography in the back, there is not so much as a single footnote throughout the volume outlining the source of Rice's arguments. This, to a student of history, will be overwhelmingly annoying. Rather than provide his sources, we are expected to "take his (Rice's) word on it." For this reason, it is difficult to tell where fact ends and speculation begins.
Despite these obvious downfalls, this is an entertaining book and a competent biography for anyone interested in either an overview of Burton's life or a biography on a very intriguing man.
Rating:
Summary: A good look into the life of the greatest of adventurers
Review: What an arduous task this would be: to effectively compile in a single volume the life of one of the greatest adventurer/scholars of the last century. The man was Richard Burton, master of 29 languages, accomplished swordsman, soldier, and scholar, the man who penetrated the forbidden cities of Mecca, Medina, and Harar, and he who helped introduce The Arabian Nights to the western world.
Indeed, Burton was the stuff of legends, a man whose adventures and scholarly achievements have seldom been exceeded. Rice definitely had his hands full when he undertook this biography. For the most part, it is an able work, providing an interesting narrative and a good look into Burton's life. Surprisingly enough, Burton, who wrote so much about everything he observed, left surprisingly little about himself. For this reason, many details incident to his life must be left to speculation.
One of the strong points of Rice's book is that he reasonably limits his speculation. Though Rice often guesses about Burton's motives or actions, he never presents them as fact, and widely leaves it up to the reader to draw his or her own conclusions.
Another positive aspect of this book is it's focus on Burton's works. In fact, the book seems almost an annotated bibliography of sorts. As the story unfolds, the reader gets an idea of the circumstances relating to each of Burton's books, and this goes a long way in helping understand them.
So why only three stars? There are two reasons. The first is that the narrative is often somewhat ambiguous, and there are some subjects which are only alluded to (as with Burton's get-rich-quick schemes). Many anecdotes of Burton are poorly organized, almost rambling. At times, the story is very hard to follow.
This books greatest flaw is it's failure to cite sources. Though there is an enormous bibliography in the back, there is not so much as a single footnote throughout the volume outlining the source of Rice's arguments. This, to a student of history, will be overwhelmingly annoying. Rather than provide his sources, we are expected to "take his (Rice's) word on it." For this reason, it is difficult to tell where fact ends and speculation begins.
Despite these obvious downfalls, this is an entertaining book and a competent biography for anyone interested in either an overview of Burton's life or a biography on a very intriguing man.
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