Richard Francis Burton

Sir Richard Francis Burton (March 19, 1821 – October 19, 1890), British consul, explorer, translator, writer and Orientalist known for his often-unprecedented exploits of travel and exploration as well as his extraordinary knowledge of languages and cultures.

As a fictional character

Fiction

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• Philip José Farmer, a science fiction author, featured Burton as one of several protagonists in his Riverworld Saga.
• George MacDonald Fraser also featured Burton in his Flashman series of historical novels.
• Burton appears as a character in a novel by detective fiction author John Dunning, "The Bookman's Promise" (Scribner, 2004)

Burton's character was extrapolated broadly in these books.

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Film

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• Mountains of the Moon (1990) (starring Irish actor Patrick Bergin as Burton) related the story of the Burton-Speke controversy.
• The controversial film Zero Patience (1993) reimagines Burton in a contemporary setting as a closeted gay man obsessed with researching the Patient Zero hypothesis of AIDS transmission.