Driven by insatiable restlessness, Richard Burton went where no white man had gone before, submerging himself and strange and alien cultures. Son of an expatriate Englishman, he was raised in Europe and educated at Oxford. As a young British army officer in India in the 1840s, he first showed the gift for languages and love of danger that we're to shape his destiny.

Disguised as a native, he penetrated the lowest levels of Indian society and disturbed his superiors with his frank reports. He risked sure death to stand in the inner courtyard of the most holy of Muslem mosques, then visited the forgotten bidden city of Harar in Somaliland, giant Lake Tanganyika in the heart of Africa, the Congo, Brazil, Damascus, Egypt and the American West.

Burton's physical courage and brilliant intellect made him a living legend, and his scholarly works and travel books amazed the world. His marriage was one of the great love stories of history, never wavering even when his diplomatic career became a study in frustration and others stole the favor of the public.

This is the swift and engrossing story of one of the most colorful figures of the mid-19th century—the era of exploration and colonization.

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