1893 The Life of Captain Richard F. Burton, K.C.M.G., F.R.G.S.

Description

Author's Presentation Copy, First Edition, Illustrated, Publishers' Original Binding, With Letter

A first edition with a wonderful association, being addresses to the brother and sister that Isabel terms 'our best friends', within this very work, and including a photograph of Richard Burton signed by the man himself.

Inscribed to the front pastedown of volume I, 'To dear George & Alice Bird from their affectionate old friend Isabel Burton, 1893'.

With a typed letter from Isabel, dated June 8th 1893, tipped in to a front blank of volume I. This lengthy letter begins 'Dearest Lallah'. She explains that she is unwell, addressing Lallah (Alice) and her brother George with 'thank god, that you and he have good health, the most enviable possession, which I have parted with forever'.

She goes on to discuss the completion of this work: 'you may congratulate me for my great labour of love was finished on the 29th, and should be out in a week or so and you will receive your presentation copy the same day, and tomorrow I trust a panel photograph of me. I hope you will like the book, although perhaps you may disagree with part of it'. 

She continues, 'I have been very personal, and have sacrificed myself completely in the telling of it, and it was very painful raking up past life and old papers and journals and letters, but I have not come to the end of a quarter of my papers yet, half of which are not sorted and I shall have, if I live to do it, to bring out another two volumes [...] it seems to me as if the subject was so inexhaustible that I shall never be able to stop'.

Alice ('Lallah') Bird, and her brother, Dr. George Bird, are mentioned within the work, and feature in the index. She describes Dr. George Bird as a 'pseudo-orientalist'.

On page 342 of volume I, Isabel describes, following the marriage ceremony of her and Burton: 'After the ceremony was over, and the names signed, we went back to the house of our friend Dr. Bird, and his sister Alice, who have always been our best friends, where we had our wedding breakfast'.

With three panel photographs loosely inserted: the first depicts a young Burton in a fencing pose, and is signed by him at the tail in both English and Arabic, and is signed on the reverse ‘Alice Bird Dec 3 1875; the second depicts Burton in later life in top hat, with a presentation inscription to the reverse signed by 'Dick & Isabel', in Isabel's hand, and the third depicting Lady Isabel Burton.

The first edition, complete in two volumes.

Volume I illustrated with a frontispiece, three colour plates, eight monochrome plates, and in-text illustrations, and volume II illustrated with a frontispiece, six monochrome plates, and in-text illustrations. Collated, complete. 

A touching biography on the explorer Richard Francis Burton, written after his death by his wife, Isabel Burton.

Richard Francis Burton was an important British explorer of the nineteenth century, much celebrated for his travels in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. He criticised the colonial policies of the British Empire, though he was a captain in the army of the East India Company, serving in both India and the Crimean War. 

Burton was known for his translation of 'The Arabian Nights' and 'The Perfumed Garden', as well as for travelling to Mecca in disguise, at a time when non-Muslims were forbidden entry, and for travelling with John Hanning Speke in search for the source of the Nile.