Isabel Burton (1831–1896)

Isabel Arundell came from an old Catholic family and was educated at the convent of the Canonesses of the Holy Sepulchre, near Chelmsford. She first met Richard Francis Burton on a school trip to Boulogne, France, in 1851, and was smitten; but as she could not win her parents' approval, she insisted on waiting 10 years to marry him. After their marriage in London in 1861, Isabel shared her husband’s world of travel and writing. She was an intelligent and resourceful woman, but was always seen in his shadow after he became one of the most famous men of the Victorian era. She served as his secretary and aide-de-camp, rode, swam, and fenced with him. Burton encouraged Isabel to write her own accounts of their travels, and she produced Inner Life of Syria (1875), and Arabia, Egypt, Malta (1879). Although he was knighted in 1886, Lady Burton considered her husband the least appreciated Englishman of his time. She was his ardent supporter and worked constantly to further his diplomatic and writing careers through the press and semi-official channels. After Burton's death in 1890, she burned his diaries and manuscripts, including his revised translation of The Perfumed Garden with extensive notes. Lacking funds, she persuaded his friends to pay for the construction of an elaborate tomb at St. Mary Magdalen’s Roman Catholic Church in Mortlake, southwest London, in the shape of a Bedouin tent, which she designed. Lady Burton wrote a two-volume biography of her husband and then her own autobiography, which was published posthumously in 1897.