Richard Burton's widow burned his manuscript of The Scented Garden and his diaries after he died

Sir Richard Burton translated the Arabian Nights^†. When he died he was revising a translation of the Arabic erotic text The Perfumed Garden, retitled The Scented Garden, with extensive notes. His wife, Isabel, burned his diaries and manuscripts, including that revised translation. A Grolier Club catalogue says she burned the only manuscript because she feared for his reputation. She explained herself in a letter to the Morning Post in June 1891, reprinted in her autobiography in 1897. Her biographer Mary S. Lovell argues the destruction was narrower than legend holds, and done less from prudery than to stop profiteers from exploiting his name. Lovell rejects the claim that Isabel burned all his papers. The Scented Garden manuscript was never recovered. Isabel died in 1896^† and was buried beside Burton in a tomb shaped like an Arab tent at Mortlake^†. Burton had been British consul in Trieste^†. Isabel is reported to have refused a publisher's offer of 6,000 guineas for the manuscript^†.