Explorer and adventurer Sir Richard Burton has been dead for 120 years, but he’s making news again — sort of — thanks to a new fictionalized biography, Iliya Troyanov’s The Collector of Worlds. Reviewer Ben Macintyre in The New York Times says the book “achiev[es] a rounded and satisfying portrait that traditional biography could never match.”

Macintyre describes Burton like this:

In the heyday of Victorian expansionism, a certain sort of Englishman believed he could do anything, go anywhere, discover everything, rule every­where. None believed in that credo more passionately than Sir Richard Francis Burton: adventurer, linguist, soldier, archaeologist, poet, spy, mystic, fencer, diplomat, pederast (possibly), sexual explorer (certainly), translator, controversialist and master of disguise. Indestructible, charismatic and extravagantly scarred (the legacy of a Somali spear that passed through both cheeks), Burton was also irascible, domineering, unquenchably curious and slightly unhinged.

…

This strange and brilliant man constantly invented and reinvented himself, and despite his voluminous writings, he remains an enigma.

The best way to begin to understand Burton, of course, is through those voluminous writings of his. Such as his fully annotated, unexpurgated 16-volume translation of the Eastern classic The Arabian Nights, the work he is best remembered for. Notorious for the delight he took in tweaking the sexual taboos of the Victorian age — as well as the delight he took in the resulting shock of his bashful peers — Burton was the first to bring to English readers in uncensored form this collection of bawdy tales from Persian, Indian, and Arabic sources and dating as far back as the ninth century AD.

First published between 1885 and 1888, and still an entertainingly naughty read, this is one of the earliest examples of a framing story, as young Shahrazad, under threat of execution by the King, postpones her death by regaling him with these wildly entertaining stories over the course of 1,001 nights. The stories themselves feature early instances of sexual humor, satire and parody, murder mystery, horror, and even science fiction, and have exerted incalculable influence on modern literature.

The 16-volume Cosimo set is available in both paperback and hardcover editions.

Volume I [PB] [HC] • Volume II [PB] [HC] • Volume III [PB] [HC] • Volume IV [PB] [HC]
Volume V [PB] [HC] • Volume VI [PB] [HC] • Volume VII [PB] [HC] • Volume VIII [PB] [HC]
Volume IX [PB] [HC] • Volume X [PB] [HC] • Volume XI [PB] [HC] • Volume XII [PB] [HC]
Volume XIII [PB] [HC] • Volume XIV [PB] [HC] • Volume XV [PB] [HC] • Volume XVI [PB] [HC]

In 1896, Georgiana M. Stisted, a niece of Burton’s, published her take on the man in The True Life of Capt. Sir Richard F. Burton, her attempt to “tell the truth concerning one who can no longer defend himself” and to “supply…the story of a great traveler’s life in popular form.” One of the most valuable biographies of Burton from the 19th century, it offers an intimate look at his life from birth and baptism through his military exploits and his explorations, including the search for the Nile.

Cosimo books are available at Amazon.com and from other online booksellers.