Sir Richard Francis Burton was not a book collector in the usual sense of the word. A prodigious buyer and reader of books throughout his adult life, he amassed a notable library that intimately reflects his interests and methods as a travel writer, translator, and scholar in many fields. The books themselves--those which have survived and now reside at the Huntington Library--testify to their owner's lack of bibliophilic inclinations. Their subjects closely mirror those of Burton's own publications: he clearly purchased them for their support of his research rather than for their qualities as artifacts. Many of them show signs of hard use and are heavily annotated, with many insertions of newspaper clippings, letters, and other related matter. The great value of the Burton Library lies in these additions, which form an archive that has yet to be fully explored by Burton scholars.

Burton was the son of...