Biography
British adventuress who married Richard Burton on 1/22/1861 and
traveled with him around the world. Born to luxury as the refined daughter
of a well-to-do Catholic family, Isabelle was expected to marry well and
her mom objected to Burton, penniless and not a Christian. He had a
reputation for being an unstable and rather off-color fellow. His normally
fierce look was made more so by a scar from a Berber spear that had cut
through one cheek into his mouth. This did not stop 29-year-old Isabel
from falling hopelessly in love with him from the time they first met in
1851. She had gone to an astrologer who told her that her life would be
"all wandering, change and adventure," and Burton seemed her
destiny. She trained herself to be a poor man's wife by practicing small
economies. She was an excellent equestrian, and took lessons in
fencing.
Five years passed before they were secretly engaged and another five
before she went against her parents wishes and eloped to London with
Burton, where they married on 1/22/1861.
Her marriage was undoubtedly one of lifelong passion and devotion,
though Richard continued his intellectual and sexual adventures through
the periods when they were apart.
Isabel herself was not exactly a conventional homemaker. A lover of
animals, she kept a panther cub as a pet in Damascus. She went into the
harems to cull information for her husband, and often nursed the sick, not
the least daunted by unbelievable squalor. At times, she wore Arab
costumes in order to fit in where women are not welcomed.
When he became consul, they went to Damascus in 1869 and Trieste,
Italy, in 1872. He published his first book in 1875, just before they
moved to India. Burton died on 10/20/1890, Trieste, Austria-Hungary. After
his death, Isabel went through his papers, letters and manuscripts,
putting many of them into the fire. Though it seemed an inestimable loss
of unpublished material, she felt that she was protecting him by
destroying an essay that was bigoted toward Jews and some of his more
extreme political views. She also destroyed his work on a translation of
another porno classic, "The Scented Garden."
She designed a stone mausoleum in the shape of a desert tent, complete
with camel bells to tinkle in the wind, for her beloved Richard. At her
death of cancer five years later, on 3/22/1896, London, she was interred
in the same mausoleum.
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