Mark Twain and Richard Francis Burton seem to have orbited without ever acknowledging each other.  I’m not aware of any mention of Burton by Twain, nor of Twain by Burton, but there are a connections between these two men.

Most prominent may be their respective journeys across the North American continent, from St. Joseph, Missouri to Carson City in the Nevada Territories (see Sam Clemens Goes West). Another point is their respective interests in the “Arabian Nights”. Granted that an American edition of Burton’s translation would not be printed until 1901 but Twain’s friends in England might have advised him of its existence before this.

A third topic that might have interested Twain was Ba'albek. Twain was there in 1867 as part of the Quaker City Tour, it is mentioned in Burton’s Unexplored Syria from 1872. Isabel Burton, Richard’s wife, wrote of Burton’s efforts to try to restore the site.

But perhaps the most intriguing connection between these two men is the classic book written by their mutual friend, Bram Stoker, Dracula. It has been noted that there exists a similarity between a remark made by Van Helsing, in the book, and an entry from Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar (Following the Equator, Chapter 12). Van Helsing says “I heard once of an American who so defined faith: “that which enables us to believe things which we know to be untrue.”” From the Calendar, “Faith is believing what you know ain’t so.”

Mark Dawidziak gave a talk on Twain and Dracula during the fall portion of the 2020-2021 The Trouble Begins Lecture Series presented by the Center for Mark Twain Studies. He speaks of this quotation but also notes that Stoker was a frequent visitor during Twain’s self-imposed exile at Tedworth Square, in London, England. Considering the extent of their friendship and Stoker’s friendship with Burton, I would expect that Burton’s book, The City of the Saints, would have come up. Perhaps Twain had lost interest in discussing that time in his life. He was still considered a Western Humorist when he wrote it. The portion of Roughing It that describes the journey west consists of the least discussed chapters of the book and Twain almost discarded it, relying on his brother’s notes to write it. Burton’s book contains little exotic adventure, so perhaps it, too, was of minimal interest. For whatever reason, Burton’s book of travels across North America are not found in the list of Mark Twain’s literary resources. Burton’s Personal Narrative of the Pilgrimage to El-Medinah and Mecca is found, however, in Gribben’s volume 2 of Mark Twain’s Literary Resources and notes that Twain had, or at least signed, a copy. There is no date associated with this entry but it does indicate that at sometime Twain was aware of Burton. It is possible that Mark Twain’s friend, Bram Stoker suggested this book. Stoker included an entire chapter in his book Personal Reminiscences of Henry Irving to Richard F. Burton and it does contain material related to Burton’s pilgrimage.

When in the early morning of August 13, 1878, Irving arrived at Dublin, on his way to Belfast to give a Reading for the Samaritan Hospital, I met him at Westland Row Station. He had arranged to stay for a couple of days with my brother before going north. When the train drew up, hastening to greet him I entered the carriage. There were two other people in the compartment, a lady and a gentleman. When we had shaken hands, Irving said to his compagnons de voyage:

“Oh, let me introduce my friend Bram Stoker!” They both shook hands with me very cordially. I could not but be struck by the strangers. The lady was a big, handsome blonde woman, clever-looking and capable. But the man riveted my attention. He was dark, and forceful, and masterful, and ruthless. I have never seen so iron a countenance. I did not have much time to analyse the face; the bustle of arrival prevented that. But an instant was enough to make up my mind about him. We separated in the carriage after cordial wishes that we might meet again. When we were on the platform, I asked Irving:

“Who is that man?”

“Why,” he said, “I thought I introduced you!”

“So you did, but you did not mention the names of the others!” He looked at me for an instant and said inquiringly as though something had struck him:

“Tell me, why do you want to know?”

“Because,” I answered, “I never saw any one like him. He is steel! He would go through you like a sword!”

“You are right!” he said. “But I thought you knew him. That is Burton—Captain Burton who went to Mecca!”

Fawn Brodie, in her biography of Burton, The Devil Drives, writes that Stoker was first repelled by Burton’s “iron countenance”, but came to be rather in awe of him. Stoker goes on with a description of Burton’s ability with words:

On this occasion the conversation was chiefly of plays. Both Sir Richard and Lady Burton impressed on Irving how much might be done with a play taken from some story, or group of stories, in the Arabian Nights. Burton had a most vivid way of putting things—especially of the East. He had both a fine imaginative power and a memory richly stored not only from study but from personal experience. As he talked, fancy seemed to run riot in its alluring power; and the whole world of thought seemed to flame with gorgeous colour. Burton knew the East. Its brilliant dawns and sunsets; its rich tropic vegetation, and its arid fiery deserts; its cool, dark mosques and temples; its crowded bazaars; its narrow streets; its windows guarded for out-looking and from in-looking eyes; the pride and swagger of its passionate men, and the mysteries of its veiled women; its romances; its beauty; its horrors. Irving grew fired as the night wore on and it became evident that he had it in his mind from that time to produce some such play as the Burtons suggested, should occasion serve. It was probably the recollection of that night that brought back to him, so closely as to be an incentive to possibility, his own glimpse of the East as seen in Morocco and the Levant seven years before. When De Bornier published his Mahomet in Paris some few years later he was in the receptive mood to consider it as a production.

I asked Lady Burton to get me a picture of her husband. She said he had a rooted dislike to letting any one have his picture, but said she would ask him. Presently she sent me one, and with it a kindly word: “Dick said he would give it you, because it was you; but that he wouldn’t have given it to any one else!”

Deuce Richardson, in his on-line posts on “The Literary Afterlife and Legacy of Richard F. Burton” (part three), offers thoughts on Stoker’s description of Dracula’s appearance as originating in Stoker’s description of Burton.

From the novel Dracula:

His face was a strong, a very strong, aquiline, with high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils, with lofty domed forehead, and hair growing scantily round the temples but profusely elsewhere. His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion. The mouth, so far as I could see it under the heavy moustache, was fixed and rather cruel-looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth.

Stoker’s description of Burton’ appearance:

The subdued light and the quietude gave me a better opportunity of studying Burton’s face; in addition to the fact that this time I sat opposite to him and not beside him. The predominant characteristics were the darkness of the face—the desert burning; the strong mouth and nose, and jaw and forehead—the latter somewhat bold—and the strong, deep, resonant voice. My first impression of the man as of steel was consolidated and enhanced.

And, in regards to Burton’s personality and possible killing of a youth who might have recognized Burton as an infidel on his pilgrimage to Mecca. Fawn Brodie wrote that Burton may have once “failed to crouch while urinating, as was the Moslem custom, and that he was thus detected as an impostor by a young Arab, whom he murdered to save his own life.”

​​​​​​​Stoker writes:

​​​​​​​I asked him once about the circumstance—not the dinner-party, but the killing. He said it was quite true, and that it had never troubled him from that day to the moment at which he was speaking. Said he:

“The desert has its own laws, and there—supremely of all the East—to kill a man is a small offence. In any case what could I do? It had to be his life or mine!”

​​​​​​​As he spoke the upper lip rose and his canine tooth showed its full length like the gleam of a dagger. Then he went on to say that such explorations as he had undertaken were not to be entered lightly if one had qualms as to taking life. That the explorer in savage places holds, day and night, his life in his hand; and if he is not prepared for every emergency, he should not attempt such adventures.

Brody goes on to write: “Still he took pains before he died to brand the story a total fabrication, and “absurd scandal” –as always wanting to confess the worst and yet be acquitted.”

​​​​​​​Stoker’s description of Burton and the Arab youth reminded me of Twain’s interest in Jack Slade, a significant character in the story of Twain’s travel west. In a letter to the postmaster of Virginia City requesting information about Slade’s hanging, Twain wrote “I thought I would just rescue my late friend Slade from oblivion & set a sympathetic public to weeping for him.”

One other, possibly ironic, similarity between Burton and Twain might be the disposition of their unpublished material and how they are remembered by posterity. Twain had specified that his autobiography not be published for one hundred years following his death. His daughter, Clara, protected much additional material, including “Letters From the Earth”. In the case of Burton, his wife, Isabel, burned many of his manuscripts, particularly “The Scented Garden”.