BURTON, SIR RICHARD

born March 19, 1821, Torquay, Devonshire, Eng. died Oct. 20, 1890, Trieste, Austria-Hungary [now in Italy] in full Sir Richard Francis Burton English scholar-explorer and Orientalist who was the first European to discover Lake Tanganyika and to penetrate hitherto-forbidden Muslim cities. He published 43 volumes on his explorations and almost 30 volumes of translations, including an unexpurgated translation of The Arabian Nights. Additional reading Biographies by contemporaries include Isabel Burton, The Life of Captain Sir Richard F. Burton, 2 vol. (1893, reprinted 1977); Thomas Wright, The Life of Sir Richard Burton, 2 vol. (1906, reprinted 1968), largely hostile; Georgiana Stisted, The True Life of Capt. Sir Richard F. Burton (1896, reissued 1985, a panegyric by Burton's niece. Later works are Alan Moorehead, The White Nile, rev. ed. (1971, reissued 1983); Byron Farwell, Burton (1963, reissued 1988); Fawn M. Brodie, The Devil Drives: A Life of Sir Richard Burton (1967, reprinted 1984); Edward Rice, Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton (1990); and Frank McLynn, Burton: Snow Upon the Desert (1990).