Though he did not merit a place in Lytton Strachey's Eminent Victorians – he was not even on Strachey's short-list – Captain Sir Richard Burton was, nonetheless, a Victorian of undoubted eminence, one of the most colourful figures of the Victorian age.

He was born – not in a mansion in Hertfordshire, as he later claimed (the first of innumerable lies that he enjoyed telling about himself) – but in Torquay, in 1821. A gifted linguist, he taught himself to be fluent in Arabic and other eastern tongues. Following service in the army of the East India Company he embarked on a series of adventures that thrilled the mid-Victorian public. In 1853 he risked execution by journeying to Mecca disguised as a pilgrim, and three years later with John Hanning Speke he explored central Africa to discover the source of the White Nile. Nominally a junior member of the Diplomatic Service, he continued to lead a swashbuckling life of derring-do, and embarked simultaneously on a career as an author. His translations of the Kama Sutra (1883) and the Arabian Nights (1885) earned him further fame and a considerable fortune. Knighted in 1886, he died in 1890, in Trieste, where he was Consul. He now lies at Mortlake, in a marble and stone replica of an Arab tent. His wife, Isabel, lies beside him.

In a celebrated fit of religiously-induced hysteria brought on by his death, Isabel burnt many of his papers, including his diaries. She devoted the remainder of her life (she died in 1896) to writing his ‘official’ biography. Ever since then, scholars have been hard at work righting the many wrongs that Isabel committed in this work (for she, too, was an inveterate liar). Over the past forty years there have been no less than four full-length biographies.Footnote ¹ Jon Godsall has now contributed a fifth.

Why does Burton continue to fascinate us? In part, no doubt, it is his controversial not to say scandalous life. Burton wallowed in controversy, and was a good hater. His quarrels with Speke were the stuff of scandal, even legend. But he clearly enjoyed the reputation that he earned.

Then there is his obsession with sex and eroticism. In India stories circulated of his predilection for young boys. A TV documentary shown earlier this yearFootnote ² made the infantile claim that Burton was a pioneer of the study of sex and even of ‘sex tourism’. To claim thus is to grievously misread – to read far too much into – Burton's admitted penchant for casual sex (hetero- or homo-) wherever he could get it. Burton laid claim to a fantastic theory that homosexual practices were endemic in what he termed was the world's ‘Sotadic Zone’, but that to its north and south such practices were sporadic and generally viewed with disgust. Mr Godsall is right to remind us that no less a genuine authority on sexual behaviour than Havelock Ellis (1859 – 1939) dismissed this theory as completely lacking any evidential base.

I have said that Burton was an habitual liar. So he was. In a painstaking forensic examination of his life Mr Godsall proves this over and over again. Many of the lies were harmless enough, it is true. What Burton did was to superimpose a fantasy life upon the sometimes exciting but often humdrum existence that he led, especially once his days as an explorer were over. But occasionally his lies were spiteful. He took enormous liberties with his various postings in the Diplomatic Service – procuring medical certificates that enabled him to claim sick leave when, in reality, he simply wished to use the time for further adventurings while living off taxpayers' money. He blamed his sudden recall from Damascus (1871) on the Jews, when the blame was all his (even the Sultan had complained about him) and his wife's. As a diplomat he was a total disaster, completely lacking in caution and good judgment. Isabel's missionary activities (she was an ultra-devout Roman Catholic) did not help.

Of all Burton's modern biographers, only Dr Kennedy is frank enough to label Burton as the anti-Semite that he undoubtedly was. Professor Colin Holmes and I have examined, in an article in this Journal, the circumstances in which Burton came to write a treatise alleging that Jews engaged in human sacrifice.Footnote ³ This essay is not cited by Mr Godsall, although there are other references in his work to Burton's anti-Jewish proclivities.Footnote ⁴ But I find it odd that the biography contains no account of Burton's posthumous The Jew, The Gypsy and El Islam, other than to list it in an appendix.

Burton's marriage was a blessing and a curse. Isabel was a devoted wife, caring and attentive. Mr Godsall's researches confirm that Burton's diplomatic career owed a great deal – much more than he probably cared to admit – to Isabel's networking within Victorian high society. But on more than one occasion he engineered absences from her so as to enjoy the company of those of whom she certainly disapproved. Isabel's major preoccupation was the next life, not this one. She consigned so much of what he had written (but not yet published) to the flames because she wanted to construct an unassailable legend.

This book is not an easy read. Mr Godsall has collected a formidable amount of material but has not always made the best use of it. The biography contains a great deal of interesting but not very relevant detail (for instance, on Burton's forebears and on the circumstances of Speke's death). It mentions Burton's friendship with Bram Stoker but omits the inference – explored by Stoker's latest biographer, the Irish diplomat Paul Murray – that Burton may have been the model for Dracula.

But if Burton did arouse unspeakable desires amongst Victorian womanhood, this would not be at all surprising. Women swooned over the ‘Iron’ Duke of Wellington and over ‘Chinese’ Gordon (who did make Lytton Strachey's short-list). I have little doubt that they swooned over Burton too.