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Burton Byron Farwell by Byron Farwell instant download after payment.
No man can be all things at once, no matter how hard he tries, but no man ever tried harder than Richard Francis Burton. He made significant contributions in the fields of literature and geography, and was also a poet, traveler, soldier, diplomat, inventor, explorer, archaeologist, student of religion and more. But above all, Burton was an adventurer in both the intellectual and spiritual world. Byron Farwell spent seven years investigating virtually every place ever visited by Burton. He overcame formidable difficulties in tracking down and reading all of Burton's extant works (his widow, Isabel, had burned most of his books when he died). Still, Burton proved a highly elusive subject for his biographer. But he has at last been caught. The result is a magnificent biography and a story that fascinates and compels. Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton KCMG FRGS (19 March 1821 - 20 October 1890) was an English explorer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, ethnologist, linguist, poet, hypnotist, fencer and diplomat. He was known for his travels and explorations within Asia and Africa as well as his extraordinary knowledge of languages and cultures. According to one count, he spoke 29 European, Asian, and African languages. Burton's best-known achievements include traveling in disguise to Mecca, making an unexpurgated translation of The Book of One Thousand Nights and A Night (the collection is more commonly called The Arabian Nights in English because of Andrew Lang's abridgement) and the Kama Sutra and journeying with John Hanning Speke as the first Europeans, guided by Omani merchants who traded in the region, to visit the Great Lakes of Africa in search of the source of the Nile. He was a prolific author and wrote numerous books and scholarly articles about subjects including travel, fencing and ethnography.