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The Devil Drives: A Life of Sir Richard Burton
"Brilliant. . . . [Brodie's] scholarship is wide and searching, and her understanding of Burton and his wife both deep and wide. She writes with clarity and zest. The result is a first class biography of an exceptional man."―J. H. Plumb, New York Times Book Review Starting in a hollowed log of wood―some thousand miles up a river, with an infinitesimal prospect of returning! I ask myself "Why?" and the only echo is "damned fool! . . . the Devil drives!"
So Richard Francis Burton, preparing for an exploration of the lower Congo in 1863, wrote to Monckton Milnes from the African kingdom of Dahomey. His answer, "the Devil drives," applies not only to his geographical discoveries but also to the whole of his turbulent life.
Burton was a true man of the Renaissance. He was soldier, explorer, ethnologist, archaeologist, poet, translator, and one of the two or three great linguists of his time. He was also an amateur physician, a botanist, a geologist, a swordsman, and a superb raconteur. He penetrated the sacred Muslim cities of Mecca and Medina at great risk and explored the forbidden city of Harar in Somaliland. He searched for the sources of the White Nile and discovered Lake Tanganyika.
Burton's passion was not only for geographical discovery but also for the hidden in man. His enormous erudition on the sexual customs of the East and Africa, long confined by the pruderies of his time, finally found expression in the notes and commentary to his celebrated translation of the unexpurgated Arabian Nights .
For this major biography of one of the most baffling heroes of any era, Fawn M. Brodie has drawn on original sources and a newly discovered collection of letters and papers.
So Richard Francis Burton, preparing for an exploration of the lower Congo in 1863, wrote to Monckton Milnes from the African kingdom of Dahomey. His answer, "the Devil drives," applies not only to his geographical discoveries but also to the whole of his turbulent life.
Burton was a true man of the Renaissance. He was soldier, explorer, ethnologist, archaeologist, poet, translator, and one of the two or three great linguists of his time. He was also an amateur physician, a botanist, a geologist, a swordsman, and a superb raconteur. He penetrated the sacred Muslim cities of Mecca and Medina at great risk and explored the forbidden city of Harar in Somaliland. He searched for the sources of the White Nile and discovered Lake Tanganyika.
Burton's passion was not only for geographical discovery but also for the hidden in man. His enormous erudition on the sexual customs of the East and Africa, long confined by the pruderies of his time, finally found expression in the notes and commentary to his celebrated translation of the unexpurgated Arabian Nights .
For this major biography of one of the most baffling heroes of any era, Fawn M. Brodie has drawn on original sources and a newly discovered collection of letters and papers.
410 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1967
33 people are currently reading
920 people want to read
About the author
Fawn M. Brodie
14 books58 followersFawn McKay Brodie (September 15, 1915 – January 10, 1981) was a biographer and professor of history at UCLA, best known for Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History, a work of psychobiography, and No Man Knows My History, the first prominent non-hagiographic biography of Joseph Smith, Jr., the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement.
Raised in Utah in a respected, if impoverished, Latter-day Saint (LDS) family, Fawn McKay drifted away from religion during her years of graduate work at the University of Chicago and married the ethnically Jewish national defense expert Bernard Brodie, with whom she had three children. Although Fawn Brodie eventually became one of the first tenured female professors of history at UCLA, she is best known for her five biographies, four of which aim to incorporate the alleged insights of Freudian psychology.
Brodie's controversial depiction of Joseph Smith as a fraudulent "genius of improvisation" has been described as a "beautifully written biography ... the work of a mature scholar [that] represented the first genuine effort to come to grips with the contradictory evidence about Smith's early life." Her psychobiography of Thomas Jefferson became a best-seller and reintroduced Jefferson's slave and purported mistress Sally Hemings to popular consciousness even before advances in DNA testing increased evidence of a sexual liaison. Nevertheless, Brodie's study of Richard Nixon's early career, completed while she was dying of cancer, demonstrated the hazards of psychobiography in the hands of an author who loathed her subject.
Raised in Utah in a respected, if impoverished, Latter-day Saint (LDS) family, Fawn McKay drifted away from religion during her years of graduate work at the University of Chicago and married the ethnically Jewish national defense expert Bernard Brodie, with whom she had three children. Although Fawn Brodie eventually became one of the first tenured female professors of history at UCLA, she is best known for her five biographies, four of which aim to incorporate the alleged insights of Freudian psychology.
Brodie's controversial depiction of Joseph Smith as a fraudulent "genius of improvisation" has been described as a "beautifully written biography ... the work of a mature scholar [that] represented the first genuine effort to come to grips with the contradictory evidence about Smith's early life." Her psychobiography of Thomas Jefferson became a best-seller and reintroduced Jefferson's slave and purported mistress Sally Hemings to popular consciousness even before advances in DNA testing increased evidence of a sexual liaison. Nevertheless, Brodie's study of Richard Nixon's early career, completed while she was dying of cancer, demonstrated the hazards of psychobiography in the hands of an author who loathed her subject.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 61 reviews
April 29, 2019
Like Suetonius reviewing the Caesars, Lytton Strachey originally intended his Eminent Victorians to cover twelve lives. He ended with only four, and Richard Burton (of Arabian Nights fame) was not among them. I wonder if Burton might have been included in the prospective dozen? Perhaps not. Strachey liked taking old worthies down a notch, but Burton’s reputation was always equivocal. He was among the most renowned men of his time, but there hovered about him a vaguely disreputable air – an odor, maybe, of brimstone.
Burton was an attraction at London dinner parties, but also a risk to polite sensibilities. Raised in France and Italy, he was stubbornly foreign for an Englishman. He was an unrepentant heathen who had married an unrepentant Catholic. He had probably killed people, possibly without needing to. In the (public) judgment of his contemporaries, he was far too interested in foreign sexual practices; his own sexual practices were suspiciously whispered about.
But he was a supremely gifted linguist, an unembarrassed student of cultures, a fluent writer and translator, a soldier, spy, diplomat, and an adventurer and explorer of the top rank when the last blank spots on the map were still being filled in. You can read a summary of his curriculum vitae elsewhere, of course; I came to Fawn Brodie’s classic biography mostly for Burton’s exploits in Arabia and Africa.
Burton had first won fame (or infamy) by disguising himself as a pilgrim and penetrating Mecca, the Great Mosque, and even the Qaaba itself, when it was death for non-Muslims to enter the city. It’s a terrific story. He was also the “discoverer” of Lake Tanganyika, which he tried mightily to believe was the ultimate source of the Nile, until forced to acknowledge that his rival and former friend, John Hanning Speke, had bested him.
(I’ll never understand why any of these old explorers committed themselves to the mad furnace of the tropics in pursuit of glory when they might have turned to the poles instead. I’m a happy creature of the temperate zone but I would much prefer a clean, cold, antiseptic death in the arctic to death amidst the phantasmagorical flora, venomous slithering things, malarial fevers, and violent natives of the tropics.)
Biographical material on Burton is copious but maddeningly incomplete due to Isabel Burton’s destruction of her husband’s journals, yet Brodie's handling of it is expert. Her prose is as good, almost, as Duff Cooper’s in his remarkable Talleyrand. But for all its fine points, Brodie’s book is marred by a creeping Freudianism which starts out subtle enough but blooms unpleasantly in the final chapters. In his own day, Burton’s achievement was spoiled by an unsavory preoccupation with strange sex; Brodie’s, in turn, is spoiled by her own unsavory preoccupation with Burton’s preoccupation.
Burton was an attraction at London dinner parties, but also a risk to polite sensibilities. Raised in France and Italy, he was stubbornly foreign for an Englishman. He was an unrepentant heathen who had married an unrepentant Catholic. He had probably killed people, possibly without needing to. In the (public) judgment of his contemporaries, he was far too interested in foreign sexual practices; his own sexual practices were suspiciously whispered about.
But he was a supremely gifted linguist, an unembarrassed student of cultures, a fluent writer and translator, a soldier, spy, diplomat, and an adventurer and explorer of the top rank when the last blank spots on the map were still being filled in. You can read a summary of his curriculum vitae elsewhere, of course; I came to Fawn Brodie’s classic biography mostly for Burton’s exploits in Arabia and Africa.
Burton had first won fame (or infamy) by disguising himself as a pilgrim and penetrating Mecca, the Great Mosque, and even the Qaaba itself, when it was death for non-Muslims to enter the city. It’s a terrific story. He was also the “discoverer” of Lake Tanganyika, which he tried mightily to believe was the ultimate source of the Nile, until forced to acknowledge that his rival and former friend, John Hanning Speke, had bested him.
(I’ll never understand why any of these old explorers committed themselves to the mad furnace of the tropics in pursuit of glory when they might have turned to the poles instead. I’m a happy creature of the temperate zone but I would much prefer a clean, cold, antiseptic death in the arctic to death amidst the phantasmagorical flora, venomous slithering things, malarial fevers, and violent natives of the tropics.)
Biographical material on Burton is copious but maddeningly incomplete due to Isabel Burton’s destruction of her husband’s journals, yet Brodie's handling of it is expert. Her prose is as good, almost, as Duff Cooper’s in his remarkable Talleyrand. But for all its fine points, Brodie’s book is marred by a creeping Freudianism which starts out subtle enough but blooms unpleasantly in the final chapters. In his own day, Burton’s achievement was spoiled by an unsavory preoccupation with strange sex; Brodie’s, in turn, is spoiled by her own unsavory preoccupation with Burton’s preoccupation.
July 19, 2022
"I don't care a button about being prosecuted," [Burton] wrote, "and if the matter comes to a fight I will walk into court with my Bible and my Shakespeare and my Rabelais under my arm, and prove to them that, before they condemn me, they must cut half of them out."Out of all the books that have spent a long time on my TBR and that I have made an effort to finally get to this year, this one likely has the most inscrutable origins as to my committing to it eleven years ago. My best guess is that, while I was intrigued by Burton through various tangential references circling around his translation of The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night; Complete (back when I lacked the skills to expand my access to classics beyond the white straight and narrow), I wanted to first scope him out through a less stodgy medium, and a biography penned by a woman during the medievally misogynistic era of the 1960s USA seemed like a good deal. However, by the time I finally got to this work, I was a great deal more informed about what it meant for a read to be a "psychobiography" (hint: heavy amounts of Freudianism involved) and a lot less willing to excuse excessive levels of subjectivity for the sake of a more dramatic nonfictional rendering. As such, while the record of Burton's life is the exact sort of material I would and did thoroughly enjoy learning about, I did have to spend some time fending off the author's more egregious pronouncements: my delight at various non-status quo subjects, esp queerhood, being touched upon in a direct (if obnoxiously cishet) fashion tempered by the obtuse efforts of the author to entice based on pure hypothesis. In the end, I'll probably have to read at least one, or more, further biographies on Burton to get a far less sensational viewpoint on things. I have to admit, though: this was a hell of a way to start.
Burton described [infibulation] in explicit detail...writing in Latin, as Gibbon did with his racier footnotes, taking advantage of the British notion that anything written in Latin thereby escaped being pornographic.Like many of his fellow "sun never sets" citizens, Burton could neither live with nor live without the crimes against humanity committed en masse by his nation of birth. Similarly, what would his reputation be had he not the evils of his collective culture to rail at and the presumptuous exigencies wrought by empire to live off the spoils of? So he picked up languages by the dozen, refused to indulge in some measure of the police state puritanism of his time, and humanized the Other a tad more often than was considered respectable for a man in his position. Considering with what ease he could not only sojourn to the farthest reaches but be rewarded for it, whether in terms of military title, academic prestige, or sheer celebrity of the hour, how could he have done anything but? The trick to it is how, despite my knowing this, how seduced I ultimately was by it all. The anthropological treatises before anthropology was established, the gaze both clinical and persistent trained towards the "degeneracy" that continually births myself and my community anew, the life lived in the raw where enough was familiar for me to rest on my laurels but novel enough for me to not only learn, but deliciously so: it's the perfect blend of the standards I was raised to praise and the values I've wrested from sources both unforgivingly sterile and erotically charged, and even Brodie's more clownish writing couldn't fuck up the experience to any significant degree. Indeed, the author did a good enough job that, by time the text finally got to the translation project that I had gone in for in the first place, I appreciated both why it didn't occupy so much of the text as well as the richness without price of Burton's choices and experiences that led to the germination, execution, and completion of the work. So, flawed this work may be, I can't say it wasn't more often than not an absolute pleasure to read.
Of Pilate's condemnation of Jesus he wrote irreverently: "I cannot but think that the poor "Pagan" did exactly what would have been done by an Anglo-Indian officer of the last generation in a violent religious quarrel amongst the mild Hindus, with their atrocious accusations against one another. Utterly unable to appreciate the merits and demerits of the case, he would have said, "There'll be an awful row if I don't interfere. Old Charley (the commander-in-chief) doesn't like me, and I don't want to lose my appointment. After all, what matter? Let the n[*]gs do as they please!"The reason why I added this work may be lost to the sands of times, but I'm sure glad long ago me thought whatever they ended up thinking when they committed to it in the first place. I'm not about to go seek out whatever other writings, "psychobiographical" or otherwise, Brodie's investment in Mormonism led to her to compose (I've read too many poorly argued thesis papers that confuse author words with author intent to seek them out on purpose), but I do have to credit her for drawing me back to the beleaguered Victorian period without making me regret my investment. In terms of Burton, it's not that they don't make 'em like they used to, but simply that the world is no longer the theoretical modern day reincarnation's oyster, and all that knowledge, opportunity, uproarious triumph and soul-crushing disaster must now either be bought and paid for or hidden away on classified military installations. Of course it's far less sexy that way, but it makes for a better humanity, and as Burton more than demonstrated, the freedom in the flight of writing and reading far beyond the bounds of a common humanity does a great deal to keep that humanity in common. The man wasn't perfect, but he existed in too close an alignment with own facets and flaws for me to do anything than truly wish that he found some breed of peace in his rest. For the world is far more interesting for him having once lived in it, and all we poor contemporary souls can do is brush up a bit on the facts and hope that they will grow us some futures.
"I am in a very bad way," [Burton] once said to [his wife]. "I have got to hate everybody except you and myself, and it frightens me, because I know perfectly well that next year I shall get to hate you, and the year after that I shall get to hate myself, and then I don't know what will become of me.["]The feeling of seeing oneself vivisected with the combination of piece of paper and a bit of ink. One never gets used to it.
May 19, 2014
I fell in love with Sir Richard and his adventures when I was in college back in the early 70s. One of my friends introduced me to his writings. When Brodie's book came out, I devoured it. Here was a man who was a man's man and sought to live life to the fullest. He went where no white man had ever gone in Africa. The description of his meeting with Livingston had me in stitches as they compared scars. If you love biographies that read like true adventure stories, this is the book for you.
April 26, 2011
I guess I've known who Richard Burton was since I was in high school, but mostly as the translator of Arabian Nights and the first white dude in Mecca. But I really had no idea what an all-round badass he was. Soldier, swordsman, explorer, linguist, ethnologist, etc etc etc. He makes Hemingway look like a wimp and an idiot. 29 languages, 43 books (really big ones), hopping around all over the world half blind/paralyzed/dead with various gnarly tropical diseases; it really makes one wonder where he got these preternatural time-management skills. Seriously, there really don't seem to be enough hours in a day to do all that he was apparently able to do in one, he must have been working EXTREMELY quickly, walking quickly, multi-tasking, etc., which seems impossible if you're running from cannibals and gorillas in unmapped jungles. But he did it.
The book, about 340 pages or so, seemed a little short to cover such a full life, I could have easily read a book twice this length with sustained interest. I really want to read some of his own books, which I've never done before. I feel like this biography didn't really give me a good idea of the inner man, but that's not really the point of them anyway. Great book.
The book, about 340 pages or so, seemed a little short to cover such a full life, I could have easily read a book twice this length with sustained interest. I really want to read some of his own books, which I've never done before. I feel like this biography didn't really give me a good idea of the inner man, but that's not really the point of them anyway. Great book.
December 21, 2024
A fantastic ,insightful and impeccably researched of the life and accomplishment s of Sir Richard Burton and his betrayal by his associates and most sadly, his wife. The man who translated the Tales of the Arabian Night's and the Kama Sutra was a fearless observer of the human condition and deserved respect and lionization for his work, instead of the attacks by his prudish colleagues and the destruction of his supreme translation effort by his hysterical, inhibited wife.
Read
January 22, 2022One of the most interesting biographies I've ever read. Richard Burton was a remarkable linguist, adventurer, writer and explorer. I found his life's story to be remarkable and inspiring.
January 27, 2023
Great prose. Lots of insight. Well rounded in speculations, blunt in truths. Brodie is plainly a heck of a researcher. Very inspiring read. Strongly recommend. Don't be thrown off by the title, religious folk.
May 28, 2021
I first read this bio long ago, but only now I have added it to my gr list. I found it a telling examination of Burton's life.
July 6, 2023
I became fascinated by Fawn Brodie (the author) as she and my grandmother were cousins. Brodie is remarkable in her own right! I had already read "No Man Knows My History" and my mom suggested "The Devil Drives". I'd previously never heard of Sir Richard Burton.
I usually keep a non-fiction going, and packed "The Devil Drives: A Life of Sir Richard Burton" on a vacation to Scotland. All I had figured out about him was that he translated "The Arabian Nights".
Wow! He traveled to both Mecca and Medina, where he disguised himself as a Muslim Arab to be allowed in so that he could write about it. Fascinating! Because he previously also penetrated private life in India, by learning the languages and dialects and sometimes going under cover, he was privy to what they kept from the British. So of course he visited the brothels and in Egypt the harems. The British publishers would edit all that out though. Too shocking to repressed British society. Later he will be known for his interest in Asian sexual practices, but as his life unfolds, it seems as if it simply unveiled itself as part of life wherever he was.
(When I visited Leaky’s used bookshop in Inverness, I found another old biography of Sir Richard Burton and read a bit and quickly realized that Brodie's biography is far, far better. It's probably the best one.)
Burton then headed to Africa for 3 years to discover the water that feeds the Nile in Africa. At this time (1850’s), no one knew. And what high drama that became! This book reads like an adventure novel!
Soon after he went to Salt Lake City! I found it interesting to read Brodie’s account of Richard Burton’s account. It’s quite steady and cool, not adding her own deep knowledge (as a former Mormon and writer of a scathing history of Joseph Smith). How do people write so well? She’s brilliant, for one thing. The brilliant writing about the brilliant.
In Salt Lake, Burton was able to interview Brigham Young, since he visited while Young was still the leader of the church. By this time, Burton had visited so many polygamous societies already that he compared and contrasted the way it presented itself in Mormonism. He said it prevented prostitution, celibacy, concubinage, and infanticide. He found that the wives he visited lived in households bustling with other women and children, and they were relieved to have so much time away from their husbands. He also said the Mormon women from England were prettier than those back in England. (He didn't have much good to say about British women, one of which he was married to!)
After returning from Salt Lake he decided to marry his long-time fiance Isabel. Soon he was off to West Africa for a post. He left his wife in England. (Although she managed to meet up with him in Madeira.) Brodie tried to investigate the relationship between Burton and his wife, who was so opposite and incompatible with him in her Catholicism.
Let me share the languages he had mastered by the end of his life (from his wiki page). He very purposely learned them, and collected proverbs in the African languages. Astonishing! What a treasure he was.
At least 26 languages – or 40, if distinct dialects are counted:
1. English, 2. French, 3. Occitan (Gascon/Béarnese dialect), 4. Italian, a. Neapolitan Italian, 5. Romani, 6. Latin, 7. Greek, 8. Saraiki, 9. Hindustani, a. Urdu, 10. Sindhi, 11. Marathi, 12. Arabic, 13. Persian (Farsi), 14. Pushtu, 15. Sanskrit, 16. Portuguese, 17. Spanish, 18. German, 19. Icelandic, 20. Swahili, 21. Amharic, 22. Fan, 23. Egba, 24. Asante, 25. Hebrew, 26. Aramaic, 27. Many other West African & Indian dialects.
He went to Damascus (Syria) with his wife as consul for a couple years. From the book: "Syria was then under Turkish rule, and Damascus, which styled itself the oldest city in the world, was a hotbed of Muslim fanaticism. There were a multitude of sects: the Muslims were split into five orthodox schools, to say nothing of the schismatics - Shiahs, Dervishes, Sufis, Persians and Bedouins. There were Sephardim and Ashkenazim Jews, the latter broken up into Parushim, Khasidim and Khabad sects. The Christians were divided into Maronite Catholic, Greek Catholic, Greek Schismatic, Armenian Catholic, Armenian Schismatic, Syrian Catholic, Jacobite, Latin Catholic, Copt, Abyssinian, Chaldean Catholic, and Chaldean Schismatic, as well as various Protestants. The esoteric Druses lived in the nearby mountains. The city was surrounded by a wall with thirteen gates, all securely locked at night. Within the gates Christians, Jews and Muslims were segregated from each other by inner walls. Intrigue, assassination and massacre were endemic."
Can you believe this place? What a hotbed. I had no idea.
As I was reading, I kept getting the feeling that, with this talent and interest in peoples and languages, he was under-used. And he felt the same, leading to depression. He said about another person, "He had every talent save that of using his talents," which easily applies to himself. The fascinating thing is that during this depression he doesn't yet know he has an amazing thing coming!
Somewhere along the way, Richard Burton was knighted by the Crown, thus the "Sir". I'm sure his wife sent endless letters on his behalf suggesting such a thing. She so wanted to be a "Lady".
Throughout his visits to Arabia and India, he had been collecting stories, and later in life he decided to translate the Book of a Thousand Nights and a Night (known as the Arabian Nights). It has other translators, but his was so full of footnotes and a full introduction, and to this day, stands out as one of the best.
But here's the thing. During all those previous years, everywhere he visited, Burton collected all the details of sexual life, and in the Nights, which he compared to bar-room stories - so irreverent were they, he was able to explain everything in the bawdy stories in the footnotes. Besides magic and romance, there was homosexuality, bestiality and simple obscenity. He was afraid of how it would be received (and of course some people hated it), and was surprised at its success! His more puritan wife created her own version of the volumes, leaving out all the racey parts, and her sets did NOT sell well. He said, "even innocent girlhood tossed aside the chaste volumes in utter contempt, and would not condescend to aught save the thing, the whole thing and nothing but the thing, unexpurgated and uncastrated."
Brodie observed that with the Nights, Burton finally found a vehicle for publishing his enormous secret wealth of sexual curiosities.
Before this, he was secretly translating a few other books. One was the "Ananga Ranga" or "The Hindu Art of Love" also known as "The Pleasures of Women." From the preface: "And thus all you who read this book shall know how delicate an instrument is woman, when artfully played upon, how capable she is of producing the most exquisite harmony; of executing the most complicated variations and of giving divinest pleasures ... I have shown in this book how the husband, by varying the enjoyment of his wife, may live with her as with thirty-two different women ... rendering satiety impossible."
Burton was translating these books at the height of suppression. Publishers couldn't touch them. (He self-published with a co-conspirator under a pseudonym).
His own library became a great reservoir of Oriental wisdom on love (and erotica). He said that Muslims and Easterners study the art and mystery of physically satisfying the woman. In China, Japan and even India, brides and grooms received "pillow-books" - instructions on the art of love - and this was considered normal.
He also went on to translate Vatsayana's "Kama Sutra". Written between the first and fourth centuries and based on writings of still earlier scholars. It's a lot more than positions. For instance, it includes advice to a courtesan on how to get more money out of her lover. And it lists ideas for gay men.
He also published "The Perfumed Garden of the Cheikh Nefzaoui" (originally in Arabic), full of bawdy stories and good sexual advice.
What a rascal he was!
At the end his life, he left the manuscript for a translation of another Arabic book on love titled "The Scented Garden". He told a friend that he put his whole life and life blood into it. It was the crown of his life. The money from it was meant to be his wife's annuity after his death. But when he died, she burnt it. She also burnt all his diaries and journals. She believed his ghost told her to do it. Just weird.
I usually keep a non-fiction going, and packed "The Devil Drives: A Life of Sir Richard Burton" on a vacation to Scotland. All I had figured out about him was that he translated "The Arabian Nights".
Wow! He traveled to both Mecca and Medina, where he disguised himself as a Muslim Arab to be allowed in so that he could write about it. Fascinating! Because he previously also penetrated private life in India, by learning the languages and dialects and sometimes going under cover, he was privy to what they kept from the British. So of course he visited the brothels and in Egypt the harems. The British publishers would edit all that out though. Too shocking to repressed British society. Later he will be known for his interest in Asian sexual practices, but as his life unfolds, it seems as if it simply unveiled itself as part of life wherever he was.
(When I visited Leaky’s used bookshop in Inverness, I found another old biography of Sir Richard Burton and read a bit and quickly realized that Brodie's biography is far, far better. It's probably the best one.)
Burton then headed to Africa for 3 years to discover the water that feeds the Nile in Africa. At this time (1850’s), no one knew. And what high drama that became! This book reads like an adventure novel!
Soon after he went to Salt Lake City! I found it interesting to read Brodie’s account of Richard Burton’s account. It’s quite steady and cool, not adding her own deep knowledge (as a former Mormon and writer of a scathing history of Joseph Smith). How do people write so well? She’s brilliant, for one thing. The brilliant writing about the brilliant.
In Salt Lake, Burton was able to interview Brigham Young, since he visited while Young was still the leader of the church. By this time, Burton had visited so many polygamous societies already that he compared and contrasted the way it presented itself in Mormonism. He said it prevented prostitution, celibacy, concubinage, and infanticide. He found that the wives he visited lived in households bustling with other women and children, and they were relieved to have so much time away from their husbands. He also said the Mormon women from England were prettier than those back in England. (He didn't have much good to say about British women, one of which he was married to!)
After returning from Salt Lake he decided to marry his long-time fiance Isabel. Soon he was off to West Africa for a post. He left his wife in England. (Although she managed to meet up with him in Madeira.) Brodie tried to investigate the relationship between Burton and his wife, who was so opposite and incompatible with him in her Catholicism.
Let me share the languages he had mastered by the end of his life (from his wiki page). He very purposely learned them, and collected proverbs in the African languages. Astonishing! What a treasure he was.
At least 26 languages – or 40, if distinct dialects are counted:
1. English, 2. French, 3. Occitan (Gascon/Béarnese dialect), 4. Italian, a. Neapolitan Italian, 5. Romani, 6. Latin, 7. Greek, 8. Saraiki, 9. Hindustani, a. Urdu, 10. Sindhi, 11. Marathi, 12. Arabic, 13. Persian (Farsi), 14. Pushtu, 15. Sanskrit, 16. Portuguese, 17. Spanish, 18. German, 19. Icelandic, 20. Swahili, 21. Amharic, 22. Fan, 23. Egba, 24. Asante, 25. Hebrew, 26. Aramaic, 27. Many other West African & Indian dialects.
He went to Damascus (Syria) with his wife as consul for a couple years. From the book: "Syria was then under Turkish rule, and Damascus, which styled itself the oldest city in the world, was a hotbed of Muslim fanaticism. There were a multitude of sects: the Muslims were split into five orthodox schools, to say nothing of the schismatics - Shiahs, Dervishes, Sufis, Persians and Bedouins. There were Sephardim and Ashkenazim Jews, the latter broken up into Parushim, Khasidim and Khabad sects. The Christians were divided into Maronite Catholic, Greek Catholic, Greek Schismatic, Armenian Catholic, Armenian Schismatic, Syrian Catholic, Jacobite, Latin Catholic, Copt, Abyssinian, Chaldean Catholic, and Chaldean Schismatic, as well as various Protestants. The esoteric Druses lived in the nearby mountains. The city was surrounded by a wall with thirteen gates, all securely locked at night. Within the gates Christians, Jews and Muslims were segregated from each other by inner walls. Intrigue, assassination and massacre were endemic."
Can you believe this place? What a hotbed. I had no idea.
As I was reading, I kept getting the feeling that, with this talent and interest in peoples and languages, he was under-used. And he felt the same, leading to depression. He said about another person, "He had every talent save that of using his talents," which easily applies to himself. The fascinating thing is that during this depression he doesn't yet know he has an amazing thing coming!
Somewhere along the way, Richard Burton was knighted by the Crown, thus the "Sir". I'm sure his wife sent endless letters on his behalf suggesting such a thing. She so wanted to be a "Lady".
Throughout his visits to Arabia and India, he had been collecting stories, and later in life he decided to translate the Book of a Thousand Nights and a Night (known as the Arabian Nights). It has other translators, but his was so full of footnotes and a full introduction, and to this day, stands out as one of the best.
But here's the thing. During all those previous years, everywhere he visited, Burton collected all the details of sexual life, and in the Nights, which he compared to bar-room stories - so irreverent were they, he was able to explain everything in the bawdy stories in the footnotes. Besides magic and romance, there was homosexuality, bestiality and simple obscenity. He was afraid of how it would be received (and of course some people hated it), and was surprised at its success! His more puritan wife created her own version of the volumes, leaving out all the racey parts, and her sets did NOT sell well. He said, "even innocent girlhood tossed aside the chaste volumes in utter contempt, and would not condescend to aught save the thing, the whole thing and nothing but the thing, unexpurgated and uncastrated."
Brodie observed that with the Nights, Burton finally found a vehicle for publishing his enormous secret wealth of sexual curiosities.
Before this, he was secretly translating a few other books. One was the "Ananga Ranga" or "The Hindu Art of Love" also known as "The Pleasures of Women." From the preface: "And thus all you who read this book shall know how delicate an instrument is woman, when artfully played upon, how capable she is of producing the most exquisite harmony; of executing the most complicated variations and of giving divinest pleasures ... I have shown in this book how the husband, by varying the enjoyment of his wife, may live with her as with thirty-two different women ... rendering satiety impossible."
Burton was translating these books at the height of suppression. Publishers couldn't touch them. (He self-published with a co-conspirator under a pseudonym).
His own library became a great reservoir of Oriental wisdom on love (and erotica). He said that Muslims and Easterners study the art and mystery of physically satisfying the woman. In China, Japan and even India, brides and grooms received "pillow-books" - instructions on the art of love - and this was considered normal.
He also went on to translate Vatsayana's "Kama Sutra". Written between the first and fourth centuries and based on writings of still earlier scholars. It's a lot more than positions. For instance, it includes advice to a courtesan on how to get more money out of her lover. And it lists ideas for gay men.
He also published "The Perfumed Garden of the Cheikh Nefzaoui" (originally in Arabic), full of bawdy stories and good sexual advice.
What a rascal he was!
At the end his life, he left the manuscript for a translation of another Arabic book on love titled "The Scented Garden". He told a friend that he put his whole life and life blood into it. It was the crown of his life. The money from it was meant to be his wife's annuity after his death. But when he died, she burnt it. She also burnt all his diaries and journals. She believed his ghost told her to do it. Just weird.
April 6, 2016
Fascinating bio of the original inspiration for the 60's children's cartoon show , "The World of Commander McBragg." Preceding his death and subsequent resurrection as one of the greatest Shakespearian and cinema actors of the 20th Century (lol), the life of Sir Richard Burton was certainly one to put modern "Renaissance Men" to shame. His obsessive search for the White Nile's source led him into heated verbal and correspondence combat with a fellow explorer, as well as actual physical combat- he rode for miles with the end of a spear run through his jaw - he was the first "whiteboy" to breach the sacred Kaaba of Mecca and city of Medina... he translated the 1001 ("Arabian") Nights, the Rubaiyat, and The Perfumed Garden, was a polymath who spoke a dozen languages, and was a gadfly among London's hoity toity social circles for decades. Never having received what was felt was his proper due from his peers, other stereotypical Victorian era English Explorers, he earned a knighthood barely toward the end of his most illustrious life, but perished in languid ambiguity. Brodie takes a complex subject and reduces him to a most human blend of enigmatic proportions.
August 19, 2013
I found reading this biography interestingly readable and informative due to at least two reasons; the first being the marvelous flowing narrative by Professor Fawn Brodie who aptly supported her writing by innumerable references and the second being Sir Richard Burton himself, in other words, "Richard Burton's life offers dazzling riches. He was one of the greatest Victorian explorers, an innovative translator and brilliant linguist, a prolific travel writer, a pioneer in the fields of anthropology and sexual psychology, a mesmeric lover, a spy and a publisher of erotica." (back cover)
September 14, 2015
400 bladzijden is haast te weinig om het rijk gevulde leven van Richard Burton alle eer aan te doen. Hij sprak niet alleen 29 talen plus nog een hoop dialecten, hij was ook ontdekkingsreiziger, antropoloog, linguïst en poëet. Op het einde van zijn leven daagde hij het preutse Victoriaanse Engeland uit met zijn ongecensureerde vertalingen van onder meer de vertellingen van Duizend-en-een-nacht en de Kamasutra. Boeiend portret van een van de opmerkelijkste figuren uit de 19e eeuw.
January 2, 2013
This is by far the best biography of the Renaissance man that was Richard Burton. Fawn Brodie's research was fantastic, her delivery engaging, and her objectiveness worth mentioning, as most of Burton's biographers were very religious men who gloated over editing out some of his more colorful exploits.
December 29, 2015
Fawn Brodie's writing and research is captivating. I re read this book every few years. Burton's life is intriguing and inspiring. Fascinating read by one of the best researchers of biographic writing I have read.
April 26, 2015
I have read several book about Richard Burton. This one is at the top of the list.
April 14, 2021
A superb biography of a fascinating and controversial character from the age of adventure and exploration.
June 24, 2020
Burton must’ve been Papa Hemingway’s wildest wet dream, but what the reader is presented with here is drab. To quote him, what we miss in this book is:
“...the odeur du sang which taints the parfums du harem; also the humouristic tale and the Rabelaisian outbreak which relieve and throw out into strong relief the splendor of Empire and the havoc of Time.”
The biggest gripe with most biographies, especially films, is they only play the greatest hits. Burton certainly had those, and while Brodie went of her way to those and more, she failed to explain them properly. This may speak to the readers poor knowledge of the times, but part of that weight is put upon the author to explain, to paint a picture to suck the reader into the character she has chosen to write about.
“...the odeur du sang which taints the parfums du harem; also the humouristic tale and the Rabelaisian outbreak which relieve and throw out into strong relief the splendor of Empire and the havoc of Time.”
The biggest gripe with most biographies, especially films, is they only play the greatest hits. Burton certainly had those, and while Brodie went of her way to those and more, she failed to explain them properly. This may speak to the readers poor knowledge of the times, but part of that weight is put upon the author to explain, to paint a picture to suck the reader into the character she has chosen to write about.
August 28, 2011
Captain Sir Richard Burton was one of the great characters of the 19th century and it would be difficult to write a dull book about this man. There’s certainly nothing dull about Fawn M. Brodie’s 1967 Burton biography The Devil Drives. But does she penetrate the many mysteries that surround Burton’s life? Well, sort of.
Of course the biographer’s task is made much more difficult in this case due to the extraordinary burning frenzy in which Burton’s widow indulged. She burnt the whole of his almost-completed last book and she burnt virtually all of his copious diaries. In some ways this act of literary vandalism has probably enhanced Burton’s reputation, adding more layers of mystery to an already enigmatic personality.
The range of Burton’s activities was astounding. The common thread seems to have been an overwhelming sense of curiosity about what makes people and societies tick, and almost certainly an equal curiosity about his own motivations and feelings. Burton was always searching, either literally searching in his expeditions of exploration or searching for answers through literature and culture.
Burton’s life was a series of failures interspersed with occasional but equally spectacular successes, but his failures were on the grand scale and they all had the effect of adding to his mystique.
Burton was born in 1821. He was brought up mostly in France and never really had any strong sense of national identity. He mastered twenty-five languages (plus numerous dialects) but it would be hard to say which was his true mother tongue. His facility for languages inadvertently brought about his first failure. He was refused a fellowship at Oxford because he couldn’t stop himself from demonstrating that his command of Latin and Greek was superior to that of his examiners. This failure turned out to his advantage. He abandoned classical studies and threw himself into the study of eastern languages, a field in which he had few equals.
His career in the Indian Army ended in failure as well, once again because Burton proved congenitally incapable of behaving with tact. And again he was probably saved from a life of routine success that would in all likelihood have sent him mad. He had already developed a taste for exploration, making a journey to Mecca and Medina disguised as an Arab. Access to these cities was forbidden to non-Moslems but Burton’s command of Arabic was so assured that he was able to pass undetected.
His most famous explorations though were to be in Africa. The search for the source of the Nile obsessed the 19th century to an extent that is difficult to comprehend today, and Burton found himself caught up in the craze. Once again he was able to snatch failure from the jaws of victory and allowed his subordinate Speke to gain the prize. For Burton though exploration was not an end in itself, as it was for Speke. He would have liked the glory, but he was more interested in gaining an in-depth understanding of the cultures he encountered. He became a pioneer of anthropology and brought a serious scientific approach to exploration. So again the failure became a kind of triumph. His fascination with human cultures would later lead him to an enthusiasm for archeology, another discipline still in its infancy. And Burton could always turn an unsuccessful journey into a successful book, as he did in this case.
Burton’s later career was officially with the Foreign Office, holding various consular posts. He spent more time on leave than actually at his posts and when he wasn’t on leave he invariably got himself into trouble. His fame was by this time sufficient to allow him to get away with these peccadilloes. As his health deteriorated late in his life he achieved substantial success at last as translator of the unexpurgated edition of The Arabian Nights, and he achieved notoriety as translator of various eastern erotic classics such as the Kama Sutra.
The greatest mystery of all was his marriage. Why did this natural rebel, a confirmed agnostic and sceptic and free spirit, choose to marry a pious Catholic obsessed with respectability? Any biography of Burton has to be as much a biography of Isabel Burton as of her husband, and Isabel’s motives are just as difficult to fathom. Burton’s marriage is the question that Brodie is most concerned with. She comes to no definite conclusions, although she is convinced that both Richard and Isabel had some serious sexual issues. Burton had been dogged by the suspicion of homosexuality since his army days and his interest in the more esoteric areas of sexuality added fuel to the fire. Brodie seems to regard the marriage as being in the nature of an escape from sex for both parties involved. The destruction of Burton’s diaries makes it impossible to reach any certain conclusions but it was obviously a marriage that would today be considered as dysfunctional in the extreme.
Isabel Burton is as controversial as her husband, and appears to have been regarded with intense dislike by much of his family. It’s difficult to avoid seeing her as a religious bigot and as an almost monstrous figure but Brodie is careful to emphasise her strength of character and the very real if somewhat bizarre devotion this couple felt for each other.
Fawn Brodie’s book left me wanting to learn more about Burton and to read his own books, and that is perhaps the sign of a successful biography. The Devil Drives is a worthy addition to the bookshelf of any 19th century enthusiast.
Of course the biographer’s task is made much more difficult in this case due to the extraordinary burning frenzy in which Burton’s widow indulged. She burnt the whole of his almost-completed last book and she burnt virtually all of his copious diaries. In some ways this act of literary vandalism has probably enhanced Burton’s reputation, adding more layers of mystery to an already enigmatic personality.
The range of Burton’s activities was astounding. The common thread seems to have been an overwhelming sense of curiosity about what makes people and societies tick, and almost certainly an equal curiosity about his own motivations and feelings. Burton was always searching, either literally searching in his expeditions of exploration or searching for answers through literature and culture.
Burton’s life was a series of failures interspersed with occasional but equally spectacular successes, but his failures were on the grand scale and they all had the effect of adding to his mystique.
Burton was born in 1821. He was brought up mostly in France and never really had any strong sense of national identity. He mastered twenty-five languages (plus numerous dialects) but it would be hard to say which was his true mother tongue. His facility for languages inadvertently brought about his first failure. He was refused a fellowship at Oxford because he couldn’t stop himself from demonstrating that his command of Latin and Greek was superior to that of his examiners. This failure turned out to his advantage. He abandoned classical studies and threw himself into the study of eastern languages, a field in which he had few equals.
His career in the Indian Army ended in failure as well, once again because Burton proved congenitally incapable of behaving with tact. And again he was probably saved from a life of routine success that would in all likelihood have sent him mad. He had already developed a taste for exploration, making a journey to Mecca and Medina disguised as an Arab. Access to these cities was forbidden to non-Moslems but Burton’s command of Arabic was so assured that he was able to pass undetected.
His most famous explorations though were to be in Africa. The search for the source of the Nile obsessed the 19th century to an extent that is difficult to comprehend today, and Burton found himself caught up in the craze. Once again he was able to snatch failure from the jaws of victory and allowed his subordinate Speke to gain the prize. For Burton though exploration was not an end in itself, as it was for Speke. He would have liked the glory, but he was more interested in gaining an in-depth understanding of the cultures he encountered. He became a pioneer of anthropology and brought a serious scientific approach to exploration. So again the failure became a kind of triumph. His fascination with human cultures would later lead him to an enthusiasm for archeology, another discipline still in its infancy. And Burton could always turn an unsuccessful journey into a successful book, as he did in this case.
Burton’s later career was officially with the Foreign Office, holding various consular posts. He spent more time on leave than actually at his posts and when he wasn’t on leave he invariably got himself into trouble. His fame was by this time sufficient to allow him to get away with these peccadilloes. As his health deteriorated late in his life he achieved substantial success at last as translator of the unexpurgated edition of The Arabian Nights, and he achieved notoriety as translator of various eastern erotic classics such as the Kama Sutra.
The greatest mystery of all was his marriage. Why did this natural rebel, a confirmed agnostic and sceptic and free spirit, choose to marry a pious Catholic obsessed with respectability? Any biography of Burton has to be as much a biography of Isabel Burton as of her husband, and Isabel’s motives are just as difficult to fathom. Burton’s marriage is the question that Brodie is most concerned with. She comes to no definite conclusions, although she is convinced that both Richard and Isabel had some serious sexual issues. Burton had been dogged by the suspicion of homosexuality since his army days and his interest in the more esoteric areas of sexuality added fuel to the fire. Brodie seems to regard the marriage as being in the nature of an escape from sex for both parties involved. The destruction of Burton’s diaries makes it impossible to reach any certain conclusions but it was obviously a marriage that would today be considered as dysfunctional in the extreme.
Isabel Burton is as controversial as her husband, and appears to have been regarded with intense dislike by much of his family. It’s difficult to avoid seeing her as a religious bigot and as an almost monstrous figure but Brodie is careful to emphasise her strength of character and the very real if somewhat bizarre devotion this couple felt for each other.
Fawn Brodie’s book left me wanting to learn more about Burton and to read his own books, and that is perhaps the sign of a successful biography. The Devil Drives is a worthy addition to the bookshelf of any 19th century enthusiast.
July 31, 2020
I came away astonished at the legendary genius of this soldier-scholar-linguist-anthropologist-etc-etc. Brodie does a fine job of diving deep into Burtons oeuvre at length, but falls short in creating an accurate picture of the times in the regions that Burton lived or travelled through.
The author certainly portray's Burton's flaws and prejudices with an even-handed equanimity. Brodie's tendency to make deep and speculative psychiatric assessments of Burton's habits gets in the way of smooth reading. I am tempted to pick up a different biography of Burton to compare notes.
The author certainly portray's Burton's flaws and prejudices with an even-handed equanimity. Brodie's tendency to make deep and speculative psychiatric assessments of Burton's habits gets in the way of smooth reading. I am tempted to pick up a different biography of Burton to compare notes.
June 24, 2018
I picked this book from a library book sale because the back of the book intrigued me. It was not anything I expected, but I learned a lot. It could have been more grippingly written, but instead it read more like a thesis. And just when I thought the book was wrapping up, Brodie throws a final chapter at you with theories and ideas that should have been in the body of the book and expounded upon. It was as if she was too afraid to make anything big of them - quite a coincidence.
June 22, 2022
A very good biography of its time on Richard Burton, certainly one of my 'hero's when young. As I was reading in in the early 70s, it brought to mind my good friend, sedimentologist and geologist Ian Gordon Wilson (1944-1972) who had done his PhD exploring the Sahara and describing mega-stardunes and who sadly lost his life in a motorbike accident in Ile-Ife, Nigeria - he was the one who spent much of his young adult life in the mold of Burton.
January 17, 2018
One of the earlier biographies, I believe. Though here and there it fawns (pun intended) over Sir Richard, Ms. Brodie's book offers and fine read about an amazing historical figure. One will hardly believe such a man actually walked this earth.
July 7, 2023
Well written biography about a very intriguing man.
Although the biographer’s psychoanalytic bent, while offering an interesting perspective, was a little superfluous or seemed to force an explanation or connection between loosely related events at times.
Although the biographer’s psychoanalytic bent, while offering an interesting perspective, was a little superfluous or seemed to force an explanation or connection between loosely related events at times.
May 13, 2018
A truly inspiring life. I enjoyed reading chapter by chapter. Totally recommended.
June 21, 2019
The life of Sir Richard Burton. What an amazing drive to accomplish things.
August 5, 2019
A fascinating read.
December 31, 2019
Hard to believe his life was not a work of fiction.. Remarkable story...
June 21, 2020
An excellent, impartial and well written biography.
August 9, 2020
See True Grit
September 19, 2020
I read this book when I was a teen. Loved it.
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