Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton

s/t: The Secret Agent Who Made the Pilgrimage to Mecca, Discovered the Kama Sutra & Brought the Arabian Nights to the West
A NY Times bestseller when first published, Rice's biography is the gripping story of a fierce, magnetic & brilliant man whose real-life accomplishments are the stuff of legend. Rice retraces Burton's steps as the first European adventurer to search for the source of the Nile; to enter, disguised, the forbidden cities of Mecca & Medina; & to travel thru remote stretches of India, the Near East & Africa. From his spying exploits to his startling literary accomplishments (the discovery & translation of the Kama Sutra & his 17-volume translation of Arabian Nights), Burton was an engrossing, larger-than-life Victorian figure. Rice's biography lays open a portrayal as dramatic, complicated & compelling as the man himself.