Sir Richard Francis Burton
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 29 European, Asian, and African languages.^[1]

Burton's best-known achievements include traveling in disguise to Mecca, making an unexpurgated translation of The Book of One Thousand Nights and A Night (the collection is more commonly called The Arabian Nights in English because of Andrew Lang's abridgment) and the Kama Sutra and journeying with John Hanning Speke as the first white men guided by the redoubtable Sidi Mubarak Bombay to discover (for himself and his contemporaries) 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 guided by the locals 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 knighthoodKCMG) in 1886.

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)
• Falconry in the Valley of the Indus (1852)
• A Complete System of Bayonet Exercise (1853)
• Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al Madinah and Meccah 3 Vols. (1855-6).
• First Footsteps in East Africa (1856).
• The Lake Regions of Central Equatorial Africa (1859)
• The Lake Regions of Central 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 Cameroon Mountains (1863)
• A Mission to Gelele, King of Dahomé (1864)
• The Nile Basin (1864) With James McQueen.
• Wit and Wisdom From West Africa (1865)
• Stone Talk (1865)
• The Guide-book. A Pictorial Pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina (1865).
• Explorations of the Highlands of Brazil (1869)
• Letters From the Battlefields of Paraguay (1870)
• Vikram and the Vampire or Tales of Hindu Devilry (1870).
• Unexplored Syria (1872)
• Zanzibar (1872)
• Ultima Thule (1872)
• The Lands of Cazembe. Lacerda's Journey to Cazembe in 1798 (1873). Edited and translated by Burton.
• The Captivity of Hans Stade of Hesse, in A.D. 1547-1555, Among the Wild Tribes of Eastern Brazil. Translated by Albert Tootal and annotated by Richard F. Burton.
• A New System of Sword Exercise for Infantry (1876)
• Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo (1876)
• Etruscan Bologna (1876)
• Sind Revisited (1877)
• The Gold Mines of Midian (1878)
• The Land of Midian (revisited) (1879)
• Os Lusiadas (The Lusiads) (two volumes 1880)
• The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi (1880).
• A Glance at the Passion-Play (1881).
• To the Gold Coast for Gold 2 Vols. (1883).
• The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana (1883)
• Camoens: His Life and His Lusiads (1883)
• Camoens. The Lyricks 2 Vols (1884)
• 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 Jew, the Gypsy and El Islam (1898)
• The Sentiment of the Sword: A Country-House Dialogue (1911)