Their marriage was both improbable and inevitable.
Based on previously unavailable archives, Mary Lovell has written a compelling joint Biography that sets Isabel in her proper place as Burton\'s equal in daring and endurance, a fascinating figure in her own right..
In later life Richard courted further controversy as a self-proclaimed erotologist and the translator of The Kama Sutra.
After being married, the Burtons traveled and experienced the world, from diplomatic postings in Brazil and Africa to hair-raising adventures in the Syrian desert.
By their next meeting, Burton had become the first infidel to infiltrate Mecca as one of the faithful, and, in an expedition to discover the source of the Nile, would soon be the first white man to see Lake Tanganyika.
When she turned and saw him staring after her, she decided that she would marry him.
When she first saw him while walking at a seaside resort, Richard Burton had already made his mark as a linguist (he was fluent in twenty-nine languages), scholar, soldier, and explorer--at once a symbol of Victorian England\'s vision of empire and an avowed rebel against its mores.
Isabel Arundell was a schoolgirl, the scion of England\'s most distinguished Catholic family.
Their marriage was both improbable and inevitable
