Episode Details

Richard Francis Burton infiltrated Mecca in disguise, survived a javelin through both cheeks, kept a troop of monkeys to study their sounds, and shocked Victorian society by publishing the Kama Sutra in English. This deep dive untangles the life of a brilliant, combative outsider whose talent made him a legend and whose ego made him enemies.

We follow Burton from a childhood spent moving across Europe and his expulsion from Oxford to his years in the Bombay Army, the 1853 journey to Mecca, and the punishing search for the source of the Nile with John Hanning Speke. We also explore his diplomatic postings, the Kama Shastra Society, and the bonfire his wife Isabel lit after his death that reshaped his legacy.

• How a nomadic childhood turned Burton into a linguistic sponge and permanent outsider
• Why he lectured the deans on his way out of Oxford
• The disguise and preparation behind his dangerous 1853 entry into Mecca
• The Somaliland ambush, Lake Tanganyika, and the bitter feud with Speke over Lake Victoria
• How Isabel Burton burned his papers and designed a tomb shaped like a Bedouin tent