The Tangled Web: A Life of Sir Richard Burton [Illustrated] [Paperback]

Richard Burton's life was as interesting and varied as any man who ever lived. Jon Godsall has spent more than twenty years researching Burton and his adventures, and the result is this scholarly and trenchant account of a truly extraordinary man. Containing new information, it will be indispensable to any Burton collector. --Mary S. Lovell, Burton's Biographer

This is without question the best-researched biography of this very remarkable Victorian ever written. --The Geographical Journal

Sir Richard Burton was undoubtedly one of the greatest personalities of the Victorian age: soldier, explorer, traveller, anthropologist, scholar, consummate linguist, skilled swordsman and prolific author. As one commentator remarked: 'No Englishman of the nineteenth century lived a more romantic life'. In this penetrating study of an exceptional man, Jon R. Godsall has thrown a far wider net over Burton's life than previous biographers. Painstakingly researched and containing a wealth of new material never before used, "The Tangled Web" will appeal to all those who are fascinated by the exploits and achievements of this multi-talented, if controversial, character.In 1853, Burton made his famous pilgrimage to the holy cities of Medina and Mecca in Arabia, closely followed by an arduous journey to the forbidden city of Harar in the Ethiopian highlands, service with the notorious Bashi Bazouks, and a trail blazing expedition with John Hanning Speke to the Lake Regions of Central Africa. After visiting the Mormon community in Salt Lake City, Utah, Burton served as HM consul at Fernando Po in West Africa; Santos in Brazil; and, Damascus, from where he was ignominiously recalled by the Foreign Office, and Trieste, where he lived out the rest of his life. During this time, he was able to work on translations of the great Portuguese poet, Camoens, as well as his sixteen-volume edition of "The Arabian Nights" and "The Kama Sutra". He also translated "The Perfumed Garden", the unpublished manuscript of which was burnt by his wife after his death.

Of Anglo-Welsh parentage, Jon grew up during the 1930s-1940s in the large industrial port of Swansea, South Wales. Following the collapse of France in July 1940, he experienced the trauma of war at first hand, notably in February 1941, when German bombers flying out of airfields in Britanny, devastated the town in three consecutive night raids.He was educated at Dynevor School (the most famous of its pupils the comedian, the late Sir Harry Secombe, and Dr Rowan Williams, the present Archbishop of Canterbury), which remained open throughout the war, despite suffering extensive damage from incendiary bombs. After National Service in the RAF, Jon trained as a teacher at Trinity College, Carmarthen, an associate college of the University of Wales. Some years later he read for an Honours degree in English at Birkbeck College, University of London.While at Dynevor School, Jon, a talented violinist, was selected for a place in the newly founded National Youth Orchestra of Wales. After passing all his Associated Board music examinations with distinction, he went on to study under Frederick Grinke, the internationally acclaimed concert violinist and Professor at the Royal Academy of Music, London. A keen artist besides, Jon had the satisfaction of having a portrait in oils accepted for hanging at an International Amateur Painting Exhibition held in London in the early 1970s.Widely travelled, Jon also relishes new challenges of various kinds. These have included taking flying lessons, and competing in the BBC Radio 4's national Poetry-Speaking Competition in 1994, and eventually reaching the semi-finals. He also enrolled in 'Remembering,' a joint venture between Middlesex University and BBC Education with the aim, among others, of promoting 'critical awareness of how we experience the past through encouraging people to investigate history for themselves.' Praised for having 'done an impressive amount of work on this project,' Jon was offered a place in the Arts degree course at Middlesex University, which the pressure of other interests forced him to decline.His biggest challenge so far has been the extensive research and writing of The Tangled Web. Taking his title from Canto VI of Burton's long, philosophical poem, The Kasidah, the image of the 'tangled web' symbolises the Truth and Lies woven by 'the brain of mortal man.' It is a theme which he has also explored in two original scholarly articles on Burton's journeys in Arabia and Somalia published in the prestigious Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society in 1993 and 2001.Not all his research, however, has involved grubbing for facts in dusty, musty documents. Perhaps Jon's most enduring memory is of listening to the late Dorothy Flemming describing a visit as a very young child to her great-aunt "Puss" (Lady Burton) at Mortlake in or around 1893. Of the interminably long day spent in a dark drawing-room surrounded by photographs and memorabilia of Burton. How, after lunch, she was taken to the mausoleum in the adjoining cemetery, and told not to chatter on asking why it looked like a tent. 'My elders, being too stout to kneel, I was dumped on the cold wet grass while we said a De Profundis for his naughty old soul.' For Jon, as for many other people, such vivid personal recollections bring the long vanished past back to life. They are, in his view, the gold dust of historical biography, and like the precious metal itself, too often in short supply.