Today, the achievements of the great Victorian explorer and linguist Sir Richard Burton (1821-1890) may be more widely acknowledged than they were in his own time. The centennial of his death was marked in England and America with exhibits, conferences, and book-length studies of his life and work.

In this volume, eight leading scholars and book collectors present a remarkable composite picture of Burton's legacy: his adventures as an explorer of unknown lands and little-known cultures; his achievements as a geographer and translator; the mysteries of his relations with other explorers and of his personal life. The illustrations represent rare items in Burton's own library and the collections of Edwards H. Metcalf and Quentin Keynes.

Alan Jutzi is the Avery Chief Curator of Rare Books at the Huntington Library.

"Donald Young presents new evidence about the controversy surrounding the search for the sources of the Nile; Quentin Keynes offers droll anecdotes about his experiences collecting Burton letters, rare editions, etc. Curiously, the most telling comment may have come from Burton's priggish wife, Isabel: 'Richard was such a many-sided man, he will have appeared different to every set of people who knew him . . . loads of books will be written about him, and every one will be different.'"—Los Angeles Times

"The contributors, without belittling the extent of Burton's personal prejudices, draw attention to his sympathetic, relativistic research methods—exemplified by his study of Arabs and of the Mormon Church in Salt Lake City—and show by their personal enthusiasm what a vivid figure he remains today, with an ability almost to 'possess' some of his admirers. . . . Written and edited with a light touch and well illustrated, this little book is an appropriate tribute to the centennial of Burton's death of 1890 and may be warmly recommended to students and devotees of Burton."—Anthropology Today

"Eight fascinating papers about the great traveler."—Nineteenth-Century Literature