George Borrow (1803–1881)

This account of a lengthy walking tour in 1854 is an absolute gem- and I have no massive fascination with Wales! In 109 short chapters (I read a couple a day- any more would be too much) the author describes the miles he covers, the sundry folk he meets en route- locals, Irish, gypsies, English...even an Italiian barometer-seller. They have conversations on all manner of things, and Borrow interjects with thoughts on religion and linguistic trivia (he was a philologist and fluent in Welsh). show more He opines on Welsh poets; he recounts interesting stories; he visits places of interest, describes the scenery, the hostelries...
I was impressed by the miles he covered, and found myself googling places mentioned.
Ansolutely brilliant read and utterly recommended! show less

Borrow is always entertaining to read: he was one of the great English eccentrics of the early 19th century, and his writings are a wonderfully inconsistent mixture of the genuine pleasure he takes in the world around him, the rather immodest fun he has showing off his own remarkable talents, and his gloriously prejudiced views on religion, politics and the superiority of the English.

In this book he's travelling around Spain and Portugal on behalf of the British and Foreign Bible Society, show more trying to give poor benighted Roman Catholics the opportunity to read the Bible in their own language. This gives him the excuse to travel around part of Portugal and most of Spain. Spain is in the middle of the Carlist uprising of 1835-39, so things are in rather a mess and travel is often dangerous and uncomfortable. Nonetheless, Borrow finds a lot to interest him in scenery, architecture, the local history, industries and food, and above all the great variety of people and horses he meets. As a linguist, he's fascinated by the many languages and dialects he comes across (even though he does have a tendency to criticise people for not speaking their own languages as well as they might); as a student of Gypsy culture he delights in the opportunity to make contact with Spanish Gypsies.

From time to time, particularly in the later parts of the book, he remembers that he's here to work, and has a go at selling some Spanish New Testaments. He goes to some trouble to persuade the reader that the ordinary Spanish, and even some clergymen, are happy to get the chance to read the Scriptures. Obviously, we can't tell from the book alone how much of this is propaganda and how much is true, but we can imagine that in the middle of a civil war and an economic depression, people might be glad to get cheap books of any description. The Catholic church does, however, make trouble with the Spanish authorities, so he and his colleagues are arrested a few times (but unfortunately, never kept in jail for long enough to make really good publicity).

Eventually, the government effectively makes it impossible for him to carry on selling Bibles in Spain, so he moves on to Gibraltar and Tangier to dispose of his remaining stock before coming home, so we get nice descriptions of those places as well, as a bonus before the book comes to a rather abrupt end in a Tangerine courtyard. show less

A wonderfully odd trawl through 19th century Cymru by leggy eccentric George Borrow, who describes everything he sees and talks to almost everyone - albeit in a kind of condescending manner. Definitely worth a read if you're interested in Cymru and its history. Be warned, at one point he is massively racist towards a black man and expresses pro-slavery opinions.

Picked up for free on the e-reader. The two books are sequential; The Romany Rye picks up right where Lavengro left off. They are semiautobiographical; the narrator is never named but is clearly the author, George Borrow. He narrates various adventures around England; as a hack author, a tinker, a blacksmith, and a language scholar. In this last role, he befriends Gypsies (Romani) and learns some of their language; “lavengro”, according to him, means “word master” in Romani. (In the show more Introduction, it’s commented that one of the meanings of “lavengro” is “liar”). It’s possible this is an intentional joke on Borrow’s part; he’s often self-deprecating, portraying himself (in the persona of the anonymous narrator) as ultra-naïve; the funniest example is when he attempts to attract his love interest by teaching her Armenian. There’s an appendix, which is the most unsatisfying part; it’s a long diatribe against Papists, Jacobites, Sir Walter Scott, and Scotsmen in general; Borrow had hinted at some of these in the body of the book but was less vituperative about it. Worth a read. show less