I just found a new book (Fiction) out about Burton. I haven't read it yet, but it shows promise.
Title: "The Bookman's Promise"
Author: John Dunning
Publisher: Pocket Star Books

Seems to be a mystery novel about a signed first edition by Burton & an unpublished journal retracing Burton's travels through the American South!
Sounds like a interesting read!

I'm listening to the tape of the book. I just got started and I got so interested in Richard Burton that I had to find out more about him. That's how I got to this site.

Wayne
A great book to learn about Burton is: "The Devil Drives", the author is Fawn Brodie.
That's the book that got me hooked on Burton! Please read it first, you'll really enjoy it.

Sheesh, I swear...goes to show if you don't act on something, someone else will. I had a great(at least I thought) Burton story involving a jaunt through the American South and singular event which would impact his life. I'm more than a little bummed to hear about this, but may check it out just the same. UGH!


D

Actually, I tried to place this as new topic but for some reason, could not do it. For everyone, there is a great painting of Burton at the Royal Geographical Society. It was donated by the Author, Michael Ondaatje. The painting shows Burton in a very enigmatic way, with a burnoose or some other type of robe partially covering his face. Has anyone seen it or know if it is available on the web or for purchase as a copy?

Could this be the portrait presented on page 12 of CHRISTOIPHER Ondatje's book "Journey to the Source of the Nile" (Harper Collins, 1998), the caption to which reads: "Recently rediscovered portrait of Sir Richard Burton in Afghan dress, by John Phillip, RA (1817-1867). Now in the collection of the author"? Were it not for Burton's dark, penetrating eyes, it would be hard to identify him! Christopher Ondatje is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, whose President wrote the Introduction to "Journey to the Source of the Nile".

Daniel, do you mean you had planned on WRITING a novel involving Burton? Too funny. I know the feeling. I am 3/4 done with my first draft of my "Burton novel" and I'm completely obsessively in love with him. :) This man's personality is so incendiary I need a fire extinguisher for this manuscript. I don't know how I am ever going to top him for the hero of an action-adventure historical.

Oh, BTW...I made him the right-hand man to the crazed Abyssinian emperor, Tewodros II, during the last days of his doomed kingdom in 1868. Sounds whacky but it's working beautifully. And Jeremy, I can't believe I can't find my copy of Ondaatje's book now, after it annoyed me by lying around in the way for months. I am always dying for new photos of my all-time hero.

Karen

Karen, Would love to read your novel when you finish, it sounds great. Keep us all apprised of your progress.
I must confess to being in love with Burton also! In fact, I was always quite jealous of
that prig Isabel and could never understand why he married such a woman!
Any ideas about their marriage? Such a waste!

Karen,

Yes, it was an idea I was fleshing out in my head mainly, but an ongoing one nonetheless. My story focuses on Burton's softer side, a love story of sorts I guess you could say, although with very little loving.
I would certainly love to read yours though. It sounds much more interesting with a nice creative flair. And as far as Burton and his kith and kin, you just can't go wrong with him as an adventurous, take charge character. Long live the Empire! hehe

D

Mermaid, don't even get me started on ol' Isabel! It might be heresy to say on this board, but she is definitely *my* most hated woman in all of literature. Of course I have all these theories I've formulated about why he married her--I think her blatant, slavish hero-worship talked to his ego, and I also think that deep down he couldn't escape the Victorian class priggishness that was attracted by her lineage. And her no-nonsense Yoko Onoesque running of his life probably freed him up to do and think in areas that were more beneficial to him. Such a waste!!

Re: Daniel's idea about the Burton love story...It definitely is that! I have the Burton character (I don't call him Burton, but he's 95% Burton and 5% other historical characters that were actually charging about the Abyssinian highlands in the mid-1800s)falling for the heroine, an American surgeon I based on Mary Edwards Walker. My publisher lets me get away with quite a bit of steamy spice, so I've been having loads of fun playing with Burton, translating (and re-enacting) Arabic "manuals of erotology" and suchlike.

I love my job!! :):):) It'll be released in February 2006.

Thanks Jeremy. I will look for the book. I believe Michael is Christopher's brother. As you probably know, a small part of Michael's book, The English Patient, takes place at the RGS.

From what I recall during my visit to RGS, the portrait shows him crouching or sitting against a wall?? Is the photo in the book in color?

Yes, the Ondatjes are brothers.

Concerning the portrait: the "Afghan" picture in "Journey to the Source of the Nilr" is in colour, but shows Burton standing, in fairly formal attire: Arab-style head-dress, reddish-brown on top, and with the long white-and-gold/lime "Bedouin" scarf / shawl part framing his face (sporting what appears to be a henna-stained beard) and continuing down over his waist in one direction, and thrown back over his left shoulder in the other. His tunic is also reddish-brown, though embroidered in gold on the sleeve, and girdled by a broad belt, on which Burton is resting his left hand. The background is dark brown at ground level, and a thick ever-darkening green above.

I'm afraid this description is woefully inadequate, and I haven't even checked the correct terms for the articles of clothing he is wearing, but I hope that it might be enough to help visualise the picture!

Your description reminds me of another Burton portrait, except that the moustachioed face is uncovered. This one is on the cover of another book by... Christopher Ondatje! It's called "Sindh Revisited". The picture shows Burton sitting on the ground and leaning against a rough brown wall / background with patches of grey (as if the plaster had come off). He is bare-headed, and wrapped in a brown mantle / cloak. He looks rather the worse for wear, though the eyes are as fierce and penetrating as ever. The scar on his left cheek is clearly visible. The caption to the image reads: "Cover painting of Richard Burton by Rick Jacobson and Laura Fernandez, inspired by an 1855 photograph in the possession of the Royal Geographical Society".

Next time I'm back in England, I think I'll just have to go and see for myself!!

P.s. Looking forward to the books-in-progress by Daniel and Karen.

Thanks for the description. I'm afraid that neither portrait sounds like the one I saw. The one at RGS is quite remarkable. I would say stunning as I still think about it two years after the fact. This makes me think it was a private donation from Michael, probably in recognition of their help on The English Patient.

For you novelists trying to deal with Isabel, have you considered that (in the early days at least) RFB felt about Isabel as he did about England? That is, loved and missed them when he was away, and couldn't wait to leave after he returned!

Alan Q

Just a friendly observation to anybody who'd write a novel employing a Burtonesque character. Be sure that you read some of Patrick O'Brien's historical work (albeit set some fifty years earlier), to see how utterly essential is a sure-footed sense of period and historical accuracy. O'Brien simply amazes me with his elegance, grace and style - and Bernard Cornwell (himself no slouch in historical writing with his "Warlord" trilogy) says of 'Treason's Harbour': "When he (O'Brien) is on this form the rest of us who write of the Napoleonic conflict might as well give up and try a new career".

Too often today we get characters who, like Brad "Achilles" Pitt in the film 'Troy', remind us of high-school students strutting pompously about in fancy dress. Like, yeah, man.

Richard,
You just made the point I've tried to make about RFB to the uninformed for the last twenty-five years or so. That point being, if you want to have a hero (in the best sense of the word), pick one who has been dead for a century--that way the naysayers have had their say and are gone as well. RFB could apparently be a rotten SOB, and everyone who comes to this site knows it--but given the choice, I'd take Burton mano-a-mano over Don Rickles any day, and be proud of the defeat!
__Alan Q

I didn't realize that I had made that point. But yes, somewhere else in my ramblings I'd said that we tend to 'over-romanticize' long-dead heroes such as Burton. We do it because we desperately need unimpeachable icons to admire and, yes, time distorts an image and history is often the victim of politics - so the plinth upon which our hero's likeness stands rises a little higher each year. Alternatively though, he or she may sink a little deeper into the mud, depending; because we love villains too!

Consider also that so many of today's great names in every walk of life are founded upon little more than a massive PR effort and a meagre talent. The truly great are frequently missed and are probably very often thankful for it, for they are less distracted.

I visited a doctor (specialist) with my mother and, as we waited, we saw that an ENTIRE WALL was covered in certificates of supposed merit. I whispered to my mum "watch out for this one!" A lot of time that could be used in professional growth can be wasted in chasing certificates.

I went to London in the 10 after the 9 of the 9/11 that hurts every human that has a sense of justice--I'd made my plans before the attack, and wasn't going to be a coward just because of someone else's cowardly action.
My anecdote is that I got to my hotel at about 3:00 pm local time, and my body clock still being on western USA time, I took a stroll to Hyde Park, which was just around the corner. Almost the first thing I saw was a plinth, an obelisk inscribed with one word; Speke. At least some Burtonians added (almost a century later) a bronze plaque on the ground that did a little to set the record straight.

--Alan Q

Yeah, that's what got me hooked on RFB. Great book and the title is perfect.
Jim

The point I tried to make (and made badly in retrospect), is that almost 150 years later, someone like RFB can be respected warts and all.
Burton, in our time, is like a fish with lungs--the people in this room have a sense of history in the+6+sense