Sir Richard Francis Burton (1821 - 1890)

Burton was raised in France and Italy and his talent for languages meant that he was fluent in four languages and two dialects before he was twenty: he would eventually learn 25 languages and another 15 dialects.

Expelled from Oxford in 1842, he became an officer in the Bombay Native Infantry. Working in intelligence, he was asked to investigate homosexual brothels in Karachi; his explicit study resulted in their closure and also killed his army career. Now intent on exploration, in 1855 Burton planned an expedition with three others, including John Speke, to discover the source of the Nile. They intended to push across Somaliland, but were attacked and were forced to return to England.

The two returned to Africa in 1857-58, travelling inland from Zanzibar. It was a difficult trip; when they arrived at Lake Tanganyika, Speke was almost blind and Burton could hardly walk. Speke pushed on alone and discovered Lake Victoria, which he was convinced was the true source of the Nile. Burton disagreed with him, the two became badly estranged and, in September 1864, a debate between the two ended in tragedy when Speke was killed while hunting.

Burton's next move was to the Foreign Office, which appointed him consul in Fernando Po, a Spanish island off the coast of West Africa. During his three years there, he gathered enough material for five books that described tribal rituals - including ritual murder, cannibalism and sexual practices - in explicit detail.

He spent four unhappy years in Brazil before being appointed consul in Damascus. His initial success was undermined by Muslim intrigue and his Catholic wife's evangelising and he was dismissed in 1871. The next year he moved to Trieste, a place he eventually came to regard as home. He continued writing, covering subjects from Iceland to Ghana and translating Classical and Renaissance literature. What excited him most, however, was Eastern erotica. He translated and printed the Kama Sutra (1883) and The Perfumed Garden (1886) and published a complete edition of the Arabian Nights (1885 - 88), which still stands unchallenged. Knighted in 1886, Burton died in Trieste four years later.