Sir Richard Francis Burton's Writings

• Date: 1850 - 1899

• Location: Europe

• Subject: Sexuality & Political/Economic/Social Opinion

• Medium: Literature

• Artist/Author/Producer: Burton, Sir Richard Francis (1821-1890)

• Confronting Bodies: The publisher, obscenity law, his widow Lady Isabel Burton

• Dates of action: 1856

• Location: England

Description of the Art Work

"First Footsteps in East Africa", 1856: One of the greatest British scholar - explorer of the 19th century. He was the first European to explore the forbidden Muslim city of Harer in Somali land, without being executed. He described his adventures in this book. Other writings include Journals, Notes, Papers, Translations.

Description of incident

1856 England : "First Footsteps in East Africa", the publisher tore out an appendix, written in Latin, which dealt with sexual customs of certain tribes. Partly from his experience, Burton learned the techniques of publishing to avoid Victorian censorship. 1883-1890 : Burton was the principal translator of several works which, in order to sidestep obscenity laws, he issued "privately" and, ostensibly, abroad. Among these were : "The Kama Sutra of Vatsayana", 1883 (the classic Hindu sex manual); "The Book of the Thousands Nights and a Night", 1883-1888; "The Perfumed Garden"; "A Manual of Arabian Erotology" , 1886: and other works, all of which bore imprints such as : "Printed for the Karma Shastra Society for Private Subscribers Only, Benares."

Results of incident

1890 Upon the death of the explorer, anthropologist, writer and translator, his widow, Lady Isabel Burton, destroyed all his remaining private diaries and most of his everyday journals, many private letters and papers, and the notes for a revised edition of "The Perfumed Garden", which he referred to as "The Second Garden." Many of the writing and reading public condemned her.

1896 Lady Burton died, and the annual report of the National Vigilance Association boasted that she had entrusted it with burning books and papers "which in her opinion, could not be read by an indiscriminate public" and they burned, "on one occasion, books to the value of 1,000 pounds." In the same year, her surviving sister burned still more of the remaining Burton papers.

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Record no 257