Sir Richard Burton

In "Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Meccah," we are gifted with his personal account of his Haj. Full of insightful anthropological observations, Burton describes his encounters with Arab cultures and customs. This exciting tale revolves around his disguising as an Afghan doctor in order to not be noticed in his religious pilgrimage. Burton was more than an explorer, though; he was a translator, soldier, cartographer, and spy....

Drawing from the famous translation of Sir Richard Burton, The Arabian Nights is a selection of the voluminous One Thousand and One Nights, a collection of ancient and medieval Arabic, Persian, Indian, Egyptian, and Mesopotamian literature. Many readers will recognize the more famous of these tales: Aladdin's Wonderful Lamp, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves and The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor. These exciting and mystical tales can be found in...

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics.' "For," said he, "there never was nor is there one chaste woman upon the face of earth."' A collection of Persian, Arabian and Indian tales dating from the 9th century, Sir Richard Burton's most well-known translation of Arabian Nights brings together ancient folklore and stories passed down from generation to generation. Featuring tales about love, history, tragedy...

Chock full of ethnographical information about the Muslims of Somalia, Richard Burton's "First Footsteps in Africa" is a great look at a white man's first forays into that area of the continent.

“Goa and the Blue Mountains, or, Six Months of Sick Leave” is a travelogue written by Sir Richard Francis Burton, a British explorer and writer. The book details Burton's journey through the Portuguese colony of Goa and the surrounding Blue Mountains in India. Burton writes about his experiences and observations of the local people, culture, and landscape. The book also includes descriptions of various historical and cultural sites, as well as...

(Excerpt): "The notes which form the ground-work of these volumes have long been kept in the obscurity of manuscript: my studies of South America, of Syria and Palestine, of Iceland, and of Istria, left me scant time for the labour of preparation. Leisure and opportunity have now offered themselves, and I avail myself of them in the hope that the publication will be found useful to more than one class of readers. The many who take an interest in the...

"The genius of Eastern nations," says an established and respectable authority, "was, from the earliest times, much turned towards invention and the love of fiction. The Indians, the Persians, and the Arabians, were all famous for their fables. Amongst the ancient Greeks we hear of the Ionian and Milesian tales, but they have now perished, and, from every account that we hear of them, appear to have been loose and indelicate."

(Excerpt): "Western Africa was the first field that supplied the precious metal to mediaeval Europe. The French claim to have imported it from Elmina as early as A.D. 1382. In 1442, Gonçales Baldeza returned from his second voyage to the regions about Bojador, bringing with him the first gold. Presently a company was formed for the purpose of carrying on the gold-trade between Portugal and Africa. Its leading men were the navigators Lanzarote and...

Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton's 19th travelogue is simply fascinating. In disguise and (I'm assuming he's accurate in this) at great risk to himself, Burton made a pilgrimage to Medina and Mecca. His intimate observations of customs, daily life, and travel in a foreign land are the sort that one sees best through the fresh eyes of an outsider, but normally an outsider would be denied that vantage.