Sir Richard Burton lived many lives in one

1821 Sir Richard Burton, British consul, explorer, translator, and orientalist.

Burton travelled alone and in disguise to Mecca, translated the classics Kama Sutra, The Perfumed Garden and Arabian Nights, journeyed with John Hanning Speke to discover the great lakes of Africa and the sources of the Nile, visited with Brigham Young in Salt Lake City, Utah, travelled far and wide, and wrote much. He later served as British Consul in Trieste, Damascus, and Fernando Po. He was knighted in 1866.

Burton died on October 20, 1890. His widow, Isabel Arundel Gordon, allegedly burned many of his papers, because she prudishly believed they would be harmful to his (and her) reputation due to sexually explicit content. This, however, is disputed.

Stone Talk (Lithophonema): Being Some of the Marvellous Sayings of a Petral Portion of Fleet Street, London, to One Doctor Polyglott, Ph.D.

By Frank Baker, D.O.N. [Richard Francis Burton] (London: Robert Hardwicke, 1865).

"This is Burton's pseudonymous foray into satire. He lampoons the British Empire, Victorian morals and, deliciously, the phony 'abolitionists' of his day." Source

Tagged: british+history, imperialism, literature, sex