Richard Francis Burton

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Geographers and explorers

Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton, KCMG, FRGS, ( March 19, 1821 – October 20, 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 twenty-nine European, Asian, and African languages.

Burton's best-known achievements include travelling in disguise to Mecca, making an un-bowdlerised translation of The Book of the 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 to discover 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.

He was a captain in the army of the East India Company serving in India (and later, briefly, in the Crimean War). Following this he was engaged by the Royal Geographical Society to explore the east coast of Africa and led an expedition which discovered Lake Tanganyika. In later life he served as British consul in Fernando Po, Damascus and, finally, Trieste. He was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and was awarded a knighthood ( KCMG) in 1886. Burton was considered a controversial figure in his day and, while some considered him a hero, others considered him a scoundrel.

Early life and education (1821 – 1841)

Burton was born in Torquay, Devon at 9:30 p.m. on 19 March 1821 (in his autobiography, he erroneously claimed to have been born in the family home at Barham House in Hertfordshire). His father, Captain Joseph Netterville Burton, was a British army officer of Irish extraction; his mother, Martha Baker, was an heiress of a wealthy Hertfordshire squire. He had two siblings, Maria Katherine Elizabeth Burton and Edward Joseph Burton.

Burton's family travelled considerably during his childhood. In 1825, his family moved to Tours, France; over the next few years, they traveled between England, France and Italy. Burton's early education was provided by various tutors employed by his parents. He showed an early gift for languages and quickly learned French, Italian and Latin. During his youth, he was rumored to have carried on an affair with a young Romani (Gypsy) woman, even learning the rudiments of her language. This may explain why he was able later in life to learn Hindi and other Indic languages almost preternaturally quickly, as Romani is related to this language family. The peregrinations of his youth may have encouraged Burton to regard himself as an outsider for much of his life. As he put it, "Do what thy manhood bids thee do, from none but self expect applause..."

Burton entered Trinity College, Oxford in the autumn of 1840. Despite his intelligence and ability, he rapidly fell out with his teachers and peers. During his first term, he is said to have challenged another student to a duel after the latter mocked Burton's moustache. Burton continued to gratify his love of languages by studying Arabic; he also spent his time learning falconry and fencing. In 1842, he attended a steeplechase in deliberate violation of college rules and subsequently dared to tell the college authorities that students should be allowed to attend such events. Hoping to be merely " rusticated" - that is, suspended with the possibility of reinstatement - like some less provocative students who had visited the steeplechase, he was permanently expelled from Trinity College. In a final jab at the environment he had come to despise, Burton reportedly trampled the College's flower beds with his horse and carriage while departing Oxford.

Army career (1842 – 1853)

In his own words "fit for nothing but to be shot at for six pence a day", Burton enlisted in the army of the East India Company. He hoped to fight in the first Afghan war but the conflict was over before he arrived in India. He was posted to the 18th Bombay Native Infantry based in Gujarat and under the command of General Sir Charles James Napier. While in India he became a proficient speaker of Hindustani, Gujarati and Marathi as well as Persian and Arabic. His studies of Hindu culture had progressed to such an extent that "my Hindu teacher officially allowed me to wear the Janeu ( Brahmanical Thread)" although the truth of this has been questioned since it would usually have required long study, fasting and a partial shaving of the head. Burton's interest (and active participation) in the cultures and religions of India was considered peculiar by some of his fellow soldiers who accused him of "going native" and called him "the White Nigger". Burton had many peculiar habits that set him apart from other soldiers. While in the army, he kept a large menagerie of tame monkeys in the hopes of learning their language. He also earned the name "Ruffian Dick" for his "demonic ferocity as a fighter and because he had fought in single combat more enemies than perhaps any other man of his time."

He was appointed to the Sindh survey, where he learned to use the measuring equipment that would later be useful in his career as an explorer. At this time he began to travel in disguise. He adopted the alias of Mirza Abdullah and often fooled local people and fellow officers into failing to recognise him. It was at this point that he began to work as an agent for Napier and, although details of exactly what this work entailed are not known, it is known that he participated in an undercover investigation of a brothel said to be frequented by English soldiers where the prostitutes were young boys. His life-long interest in sexual practices led him to produce a detailed report which was later to cause trouble for Burton when subsequent readers of the report (which Burton had been assured would be kept secret) came to believe that Burton had, himself, participated in some of the practices described within his writing.

In March 1849 he returned to Europe on sick leave. In 1850 he wrote his first book Goa and the Blue Mountains a guide to the Goa region. He travelled to Boulogne to visit the fencing school there and it was there where he first encountered his future wife Isabel Arundell, a young Catholic woman from a good family.

First explorations and journey to Mecca (1851 – 1853)

Motivated by his love of adventure, Burton got the approval of the Royal Geographical Society for an exploration of the area and he gained permission from the Board of Directors of the British East India Company to take leave from the army. His time in the Sindh prepared him well for his Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca and, in this case, Medina) and his seven years in India gave Burton a familiarity with the customs and behaviour of Muslims. It was this journey, undertaken in 1853 which first made Burton famous. He had planned it whilst travelling disguised among the Muslims of Sindh, and had laboriously prepared for the ordeal by study and practice (including being circumcised to further lower the risk of being discovered).

Although Burton was not the first non-Muslim European to make the Hajj (that honour belonging to Ludovico di Barthema in 1503), his pilgrimage is the most famous and the best documented of the time. He adopted various disguises including that of a Pathan (modern Pashtun) to account for any oddities in speech, but he still had to demonstrate an understanding of intricate Islamic ritual, and a familiarity with the minutiae of Eastern manners and etiquette. Burton's trek to Mecca was quite dangerous and his caravan was attacked by bandits (a common experience at the time). As he put it, although "...neither Koran or Sultan enjoin the death of Jew or Christian intruding within the columns that note the sanctuary limits, nothing could save a European detected by the populace, or one who after pilgrimage declared himself an unbeliever.". The pilgrimage entitled him to the title of Hajji and to wear a green turban. Burton's own account of his journey is given in The Pilgrimage to Al-Medinah and Meccah (1855).

Early explorations (1854 – 1855)

In March 1854 he was transferred to the political department of the East India Company. His exact work at this time is uncertain although it seems likely he was acting as a spy for General Napier. It was in September of this year that he first met Captain (then Lieutenant) John Hanning Speke who would accompany him on his most famous exploration. His next journey was to explore the interior of the Somali Country (modern Somalia), as British authorities wanted to protect the Red Sea trade. Burton undertook the first part of the trip alone. He made an expedition to Harar, the Somali capital, which no European had entered (indeed there was a prophecy that the city would decline if a Christian was admitted inside). The expedition lasted four months. Burton not only travelled to Harar but also was introduced to the Emir and stayed in the city for ten days. The journey back was plagued by lack of supplies and Burton wrote that he would have died of thirst had he not seen desert birds and realised they would be near water.

Following this adventure he set out again accompanied by Lieutenant Speke, Lieutenant G. E. Herne and Lieutenant William Stroyan and a number of Africans employed as bearers. However, early on in the expedition, his party was attacked by a group of Somali tribesmen (the officers estimated the number of attackers as two hundred). In the ensuing fight, Stroyan was killed and Speke was captured and wounded in eleven places before he managed to escape. Burton was impaled with a javelin, the point entering one cheek and exiting the other. This wound left a notable scar that can be easily seen on portraits and photographs. He was forced to make his escape with the weapon still transfixing his head. However, the failure of this expedition was viewed harshly by the authorities and a two year investigation was set up to determine to what extent Burton was culpable for this disaster. While he was largely cleared of any blame this did not help his career. He describes the harrowing attack in First Footsteps in East Africa (1856).

In 1855 Burton rejoined the army and travelled to the Crimea hoping to see active service in the Crimean War. He served on the staff of Beatson's Horse a corps of Bashi-bazouks, local fighters under the command of General Beatson, in the Dardanelles. The corps was disbanded following a "mutiny" after they refused to obey orders and Burton's name was mentioned (to his detriment) in the subsequent inquiry.

Exploring the lakes of central Africa (1856 – 1860)

In 1856 the Royal Geographical Society funded another expedition in which Burton set off from Zanzibar to explore an "inland sea" which was known to exist. His mission was to study local tribes and to find out what exports might be possible from the region. It was hoped that the expedition might lead to the discovery of the source of the River Nile though this was not an explicit aim. Burton had been told that only a fool would say his expedition aimed to find the source of the Nile because anything short of that would be regarded as a failure.

Before leaving for Africa, Burton proposed to Isabel Arundell and they became secretly engaged. Her family would never accept the marriage since Burton was not a Catholic and was not wealthy.

Speke again accompanied him and on the 27 June 1857 they set out from the east coast of Africa heading west in search of the lake or lakes. They were helped greatly by their experienced local guide Sidi Mubarak (also known as "Bombay") who was familiar with some of the customs and languages of the region. From the start the outward journey was beset with problems such as recruiting reliable bearers and with equipment and supplies being stolen by deserting expedition members. Both men were beset by a variety of tropical diseases on the journey. Speke was rendered blind for some of the journey and deaf in one ear (due to an infection caused by attempts to remove a beetle). Burton was unable to walk for some of the journey and had to be carried by the bearers.

The expedition arrived at Lake Tanganyika in February 1858. Burton was awestruck by the sight of the magnificent lake, but Speke, who had been temporarily blinded by a disease, was unable to see the body of water. By this point much of their surveying equipment was lost, ruined or stolen and they were unable to complete surveys of the area as well as they wished. Burton was again taken ill on the return journey and Speke continued exploring without him, making a journey to the north and eventually locating the great Lake Victoria, or Victoria Nyanza. Lacking supplies and proper instruments Speke was unable to survey the area properly but was privately convinced that it was the long sought source of the Nile. Burton's description of the journey is given in Lake Regions of Equatorial Africa (1860). Speke gave his own account in The Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile (1863).

Both Burton and Speke were in extremely poor health after the journey and returned home separately. As usual Burton kept very detailed notes, not just on the geography but also on the languages, customs and even sexual habits of the people he encountered. Although it was Burton's last great expedition his geographical and cultural notes were to prove invaluable for subsequent explorations by Speke and James Augustus Grant, Sir Samuel Baker, David Livingstone and Henry Morton Stanley. Speke and Grant's (1863) exploration began on the east coast near Zanzibar again and went around the west side of Lake Victoria to Lake Albert and finally returning in triumph via the Nile River. However, crucially, they had lost track of the river's course between Lake Victoria and Albert. This left Burton, and others, unsatisfied that the source of the Nile was conclusively proven.

Burton and Speke

Burton and Speke's exploration to Tanganyika and Victoria was, arguably, his most celebrated exploration but what followed was a bitter and prolonged public quarrel between the two men which damaged Burton's reputation severely. From surviving letters it seems that Speke already distrusted and disliked Burton before the start of their second expedition. There are several reasons why they fell out. It seems obvious that the two men were very different in character with Speke being more in tune with the prevailing morality of Victorian England. There was obviously a great element of professional rivalry. Some biographers have suggested that friends of Speke (particularly Laurence Oliphant) stirred up trouble between the two. It also seems that Speke resented Burton's position as expedition leader and claimed that this leadership was nominal only and that Burton was an invalid for most of the second expedition. There were problems with debts run up by the expedition that were left unpaid when they left Africa. Speke claimed that Burton had sole responsibility for these debts. Finally, there was the issue of the source of the Nile, perhaps the greatest prize of its day to explorers. It is now known that Lake Victoria is a source, but at the time the issue was controversial. Speke's expedition there was undertaken without Burton (who was incapacitated by several illnesses at the time) and his survey of the area was, by necessity, rudimentary, leaving the issue unresolved. Burton (and indeed many eminent explorers such as Livingstone) were very sceptical that the lake was the genuine source.

After the expedition, the two men travelled home to England separately with Speke arriving in London first. Despite an agreement between them that they would give their first public speech together, Speke gave a lecture at the Royal Geographical Society in which he made the claim that his discovery, Lake Victoria, was the source of the Nile. When Burton arrived in London he found Speke being lionised as a hero and felt his own role had been reduced to that of sickly companion. Furthermore, Speke was organising other expeditions to the region and clearly had no plans to include Burton.

In the subsequent months, Speke did much to attempt to harm Burton's reputation even going so far as to claim that Burton had tried to poison him during the expedition. Meanwhile Burton spoke out against Speke's claim to have discovered the source of the Nile, saying that the evidence was inconclusive and the measurements made by Speke were inaccurate. It is notable that in Speke's expedition with Grant he made Grant sign a statement saying, amongst other things, "I renounce all my rights to publishing... my own account [of the expedition] until approved of by Captain Speke or the R. G. S. (Royal Geographical Society)".

Speke and Grant undertook a second expedition to prove that Lake Victoria was the true source of the Nile but again problems with surveying and measurement meant not everybody was satisfied the issue had been resolved. On 16 September 1864 Burton and Speke were due to debate the issue of the source of the Nile in front of the British Association for the Advancement of Science at that body's annual meeting in Bath. Burton was regarded as the superior public speaker and scholar and was likely to get the better of such a debate. However, the previous day Speke died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound while hunting on a relative's nearby estate. There were no direct witnesses to the shooting and it has been widely speculated that he might have committed suicide, however, the coroner declared it to be a hunting accident. Burton was at the debate hall in Bath waiting to give his presentation when the news of Speke's death arrived and, considerably shaken, he elected not to give his planned talk.

Diplomatic service and scholarship (1861 – 1890)

In January 1861 Richard and Isabel married in a quiet Catholic ceremony although he did not adopt the Catholic faith at this time. Shortly after this, the couple were forced to spend some time apart when he formally entered the Foreign Service as consul at Fernando Po, the modern island of Bioko in Equatorial Guinea. This was not a prestigious appointment and since the climate was considered extremely unhealthy for Europeans, Isabel could not accompany him. Burton spent much of this time exploring the coast of West Africa. The couple were reunited in 1865 when Burton was transferred to Santos in Brazil.

In 1869 he was made consul in Damascus, an ideal post for someone with Burton's knowledge of the region and customs. However, Burton made many enemies in his time there. He managed to turn many of the Jewish population of the area against him in a dispute over money lending. It had been the practice for the British consulate to take action against those who defaulted on loans but Burton saw no reason to continue this practice and this caused a great deal of hostility. He and Isabel greatly enjoyed their time there and befriended Lady Jane Digby, the well-known adventurer, and Abd al-Kader al-Jazairi, a prominent leader of the Algerian revolution then living in exile.

However, the area was in some turmoil at the time with considerable tensions between the Christian, Jewish and Muslim populations. Burton did his best to keep the peace and resolve the situation but this sometimes led him into trouble. On one occasion, he claims to have escaped an attack by hundreds of armed horsemen and camel riders sent by Mohammed Rashid Pasha, the Governor of Syria. He wrote "I have never been so flattered in my life than to think it would take three hundred men to kill me.".

In addition to these incidents, there were a number of people who disliked Burton and wished him removed from such a sensitive position. Eventually, to resolve the situation, Burton was transferred to Trieste (then part of Austria-Hungary) in 1871. Burton was never particularly content with this post but it required little work and allowed him the freedom to write and travel.

In 1863 Burton co-founded the Anthropological Society of London with Dr. James Hunt. In Burton's own words, the main aim of the society (through the publication of the periodical Anthropologia) was "to supply travellers with an organ that would rescue their observations from the outer darkness of manuscript and print their curious information on social and sexual matters". On February 5, 1886 he was awarded a knighthood ( KCMG) by Queen Victoria.

He wrote a number of travel books in this period although these were not particularly well received. His best-known contributions to literature were those considered risqué or even pornographic at the time and which were published under the auspices of the Kama Shastra society. These books include The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana (1883) (popularly known as the Kama Sutra), The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night (1885) (popularly known as The Arabian Nights), The Perfumed Garden of the Shaykh Nefzawi (1886) and The Supplemental Nights to the Thousand Nights and a Night (six volumes 1886– 1898).

Published in this period, but composed on his return journey from Mecca, The Kasidah has been cited as evidence of Burton's status as a Sufi. The poem (and Burton's notes and commentary on it) contain layers of Sufic meaning, and seem to have been designed to project Sufi teaching in the West.

Other works of note include a collection of Hindu tales, Vikram and the Vampire (1870); and his uncompleted history of swordsmanship, The Book of the Sword (1884). He also translated The Lusiads, the Portuguese national epic by Luís de Camões, in 1880 and wrote a sympathetic biography of the poet and adventurer the next year. The book The Jew, the Gipsy and el Islam was published posthumously in 1898 and was controversial since it contained an essay about Jewish human sacrifices (Burton's investigations into this had provoked hostility from the Jewish population in Damascus).

Burton died in Trieste early on the morning of 20 October 1890 of a heart attack. His wife Isabel convinced a priest to perform the last rites, although Burton was not a Catholic and this action later caused a rift between Isabel and some of Burton's friends. It has been suggested that the death occurred very late on 19 October and that Burton was already dead by the time the last rites were administered.

Isabel never recovered from the loss. After his death she burned many of her husband's papers, including extensive journals and a planned new translation of The Perfumed Garden to be called The Scented Garden. Her actions have been widely condemned, although she believed she was acting to protect the reputation of her husband (in fact she claimed that she was instructed to burn the manuscript of The Scented Garden by his spirit).

Isabel wrote a biography in praise of her husband. The couple are buried in a remarkable tomb in the shape of a Bedouin tent at Mortlake in southwest London.

The Kama Shastra Society

Burton had long had an interest in sexuality and erotic literature. However, the Obscene Publications Act of 1857 had resulted in many jail sentences for publishers with prosecutions being brought by the Society for the Suppression of Vice (Burton referred to the society and those who shared its views as Mrs Grundy). A way around this was the private circulation of books amongst the members of a society. For this reason Burton, together with Forster Fitzgerald Arbuthnot created the Kama Shastra Society to print and circulate books that would be illegal to publish in public.

One of the most celebrated of all his books is his translation of the The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night (more commonly known in English as The Arabian Nights because of Andrew Lang's abridged collection) in ten volumes, (1885) with six further volumes being added later. The volumes were printed by the Kama Shashtra Society in a subscribers-only edition of one thousand with a guarantee that there would never be a larger printing of the books in this form. The stories collected were often sexual in content and were considered pornography at the time of publication. In particular, the Terminal Essay of the Nights was one of the first English language texts to dare address the practice of pederasty which he postulated was prevalent in an area of the southern latitudes named by him the "Sotadic zone." Rumors about Burton’s own sexuality were already circulating and were further incited by this work.

Perhaps Burton's best-known book is his translation of The Kama Sutra. In fact, it is not really true that he was the translator since the original manuscript was in ancient Sanskrit which he could not read. However, he collaborated with Forster Fitzgerald Arbuthnot on the work and provided translations from other manuscripts of later translations. The Kama Shashtra Society first printed the book in 1883 and numerous editions of the Burton translation are in print to this day.

His English translation from a French edition of the Arabic erotic guide The Perfumed Garden was printed as The Perfumed Garden of the Cheikh Nefzaoui: A Manual of Arabian Erotology (1886). After Richard's death Isabel burnt many of his papers including a manuscript of a subsequent translation, The Scented Garden, containing the final chapter of the work, on pederasty. It is interesting to note that Burton all along intended for this translation to be published after his death, to provide a competence for his widow, and also, as a final gesture of defiance against Victorian society.

"Ruffian Dick" – scandals in the life of Richard Burton

Richard Burton was always a controversial character and there were those in Victorian society who would leave a room rather than associate with him. In his army career he was sometimes known as "Ruffian Dick" and this lack of respect for authority and convention made him many enemies and gave him a reputation in some parts as a rogue. There were a number of rumours about him that meant that he would not necessarily be welcomed in a respectable Victorian household.

Firstly, in a society where sexual repression was the norm, Burton's writing was unusually open and frank about his interest in sex and sexuality. His travel writing is often full of details about the sexual lives of the inhabitants of areas he travelled through and many of these details would have been shocking to the average Victorian. Burton's interest in sexuality led him to make measurements of the penis lengths of the inhabitants of various regions which he includes in his travel books. He also describes sexual techniques common in the regions he visited, often hinting that he had participated, hence breaking both sexual and racial taboos of his day. Naturally, many people at the time considered the Kama Shastra Society and the books it published scandalous.

Allegations of homosexuality dogged Burton throughout most of his life, a particularly serious accusation as it was a criminal offence in Victorian England. Biographers disagree on whether or not Burton ever experienced homosexual sex (he never directly admits to it in his writing). These allegations began in his army days when General Sir Charles James Napier requested that Burton go undercover to investigate a male brothel reputed to be frequented by British soldiers. It has been suggested that Burton's detailed report on the workings of the brothel may have led some to believe he had been a customer. His later writings on the subject of pederasty and the fact that he and Isabel remained childless gave further ground for speculation.

Burton was a heavy drinker at various times in his life and also admitted to taking both hemp and opium. Friends of the poet Algernon Swinburne blamed Burton for leading him astray, holding Burton responsible for Swinburne's alcoholism and interest in the works of the Marquis de Sade.

Burton was also accused of having murdered a man on his trip to Mecca. The story was that on the journey he had accidentally revealed himself as a European and killed the man (in some versions a boy) to keep his secret. While Burton often denied this, he was also given to baiting gullible listeners. Famously a doctor once asked him coldly, "How do you feel when you have killed a man?" Burton retorted, "Quite jolly, what about you?" When asked by a priest about the same incident Burton is said to have replied "Sir, I'm proud to say I have committed every sin in the Decalogue.".

These allegations coupled with Burton's often-prickly nature were said to have harmed his career and may explain why he was not promoted further, either in army life or in the diplomatic service. As an obituary described: "...he was ill fitted to run in official harness, and he had a Byronic love of shocking people, of telling tales against himself that had no foundation in fact." Ouida reported that "Men at the FO [Foreign Office]... used to hint dark horrors about Burton, and certainly justly or unjustly he was disliked, feared and suspected... not for what he had done, but for what he was believed capable of doing..." Whatever the truth of the many allegations made against him, Burton's interests and outspoken nature ensured that he was always a controversial character in his lifetime.

Chronology

Selected writings of Richard Francis Burton

• Goa and the Blue Mountains (1851)
• Scinde or the Unhappy Valley (1851)
• Sindh and the Races That Inhabit the Valley of the Indus (1851)
• Al-Medina and Meccah (1855)
• First Footsteps in East Africa (1856)
• Falconry in the Valley of the Indus (1857)
• Lake Regions of Equatorial Africa (1860)
• The City of the Saints, Among the Mormons and Across the Rocky Mountains to California (1861)
• Wanderings in West Africa (1863)
• Abeokuta and the Cameroons (1863)
• A Mission to Gelele, King of Dahomé (1864)
• Wit and Wisdom From West Africa (1865)
• The Highlands of Brazil (1869)
• Letters From the Battlefields of Paraguay (1870)
• Unexplored Syria (1872)
• Zanzibar (1872)
• Ultima Thule (1872)
• Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo (1876)
• Etruscan Bologna (1876)
• Sindbar (1877)
• The Land of Midian (1879)
• The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi (1880)
• To the Gold Coast for Gold (1883)
• The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana (with F. F. Arbuthnot 1883)
• The Book of the Sword (1884)
• The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night (ten volumes 1885)
• The Perfumed Garden of the Shaykh Nefzawi (1886)
• The Supplemental Nights to the Thousand Nights and a Night (six volumes 1886 – 1888)
• The Gypsy, the Jew and El Islam (1898)
• The Sentiment of the Sword: A Country-House Dialogue (1911)

Biographies and other books about Burton

A number of biographies of Burton have been written. The following is a list of biographies or books inspired by Burton, concentrating on those which are recent or influential.

• A Rage to Live: A Biography of Richard & Isabel Burton by Mary S. Lovell (W.W. Norton & Company Inc.: New York 1998).
• Journey to the Source of the Nile by Christopher Ondaatje (HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.: Toronto 1998).
• Sindh Revisited: A Journey in the Footsteps of Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton by Christopher Ondaatje (HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.: Toronto 1996).
• Burton: Snow on the Desert by Frank McLynn (John Murray Publishing 1993).
• Of No Country: An Anthology of Richard Burton by Frank McLynn (Charles Scribner's Sons: New York 1990).
• Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton: The Secret Agent Who Made the Pilgrimage to Mecca, Discovered the Kama Sutra, and Brought the Arabian Nights to the West by Edward Rice (Charles Scribner's Sons: New York 1990).
• Burton and Speke by William Harrison (St Martins/Marek & W.H. Allen 1984).
• The Devil Drives: A Life of Sir Richard Burton by Fawn M. Brodie (W.W. Norton & Company Inc.: New York 1967).
• Burton: A Biography of Sir Richard Francis Burton by Byron Farwell (Penguin Books: London 1963).
• Death Rides a Camel by Allen Edwardes (The Julian Press, Inc.: New York 1963).
• The Life of Sir Richard Burton by Thomas Wright (1905).
• The Life of Captain Sir Richard F. Burton KCMG, FRGS by Isabel Burton (Chapman and Hall 1893).

As a fictional character

Fiction

• Philip José Farmer, a science fiction author, featured Burton as one of several protagonists in his Riverworld Saga (1966 – 1993).
• George MacDonald Fraser also featured Burton in his Flashman series (1969 – 2005) of historical novels (usually referred to as "that rogue Dick Burton").
• John Dunning includes Burton in his detective fiction The Bookman's Promise (Scribner 2004).
• Ilija Trojanow, Der Weltensammler, a German language novel features Richard Burton (Hanser 2006).
• Robert Doherty's Area 51 novels (1997 – 2004) feature Burton as the discoverer of a secret alien race. The books include sections from Burton's writings.
• Wilkie Collins's detective novel The Moonstone (1859) features a character, Mr. Murthwaite, apparently based on Burton. He is "the celebrated Indian traveller, Mr. Murthwaite, who, at risk of his life, had penetrated in disguise where no European had ever set foot before" (chapter X).

Film

• Mountains of the Moon (1990) (starring Irish actor Patrick Bergin as Burton) related the story of the Burton-Speke exploration and the subsequent controversy over the source of the Nile. This was based on the 1984 novel Burton and Speke by William Harrison.
• Zero Patience (1993) re-imagines Burton in a contemporary setting as a closeted gay man obsessed with researching the Patient Zero hypothesis of AIDS transmission.

Television

• In The Sentinel (1996-1999) (starring Richard Burgi and Garett Maggart) a fictional monograph attributed to Richard Burton ("the explorer, not the actor") forms the background of the show's mythology.

• Search for the Nile, 1971 BBC mini-series featured Kenneth Haigh as Burton