Abstract

A Victorian Genius

The article presents the author's views on the book "Selected Papers on Anthropology, Travel, and Exploration," by Sir Richard Burton, edited and annoted by N.M. Penzer. Among all the enthusiastic appreciators of Sir Richard Burton there has been none more persistent, more determined in his efforts to obtain justice for him than Mr. Penzer. This selection shows the wide range of Burton's studies and explorations: from the very heart of the United States at a time when its inter-communications were distracted by civil war; from the tangled recesses of the African continent to the town of Mecca, almost unapproachable for a Christian at the present day, though Burton visited it in thin disguise as a nominal Mohammedan; from this, that, and the other little known and scarcely described district of western India to Rome, which had just ceased to be Papal, and to Palmyra, lost in the sands of desert Syria.