The material within this collection comprises of correspondence and publications by and about Richard Francis Burton and his wife Isabel Burton (nee Arundell). There are also two photographs of Burton and artefacts.

Also included within this Collection are correspondence concerning the acquisition of the material by the RAS and some supplementary material regarding Oscar Eckenstein, its original collector.

Wooden walking stick with chameleon handle with silver collar bearing the inscription “From the King of Dahomey to Captain R Burton 1863.” This was presumably Gelele, King of Dahomey, (acc. 1858, dep. 1894). Burton’s mission to him in this year is described in "A Mission to Gelele, King of Dahome (now Republic of Benin), with notices of the so-called “Amazons”, the Grand Customs, the Yearly Customs, the Human Sacrifices, the Present State of the Slave Trade and the Negro's Place in Nature" by Richard F. Burton.