The Bible in Spain; or, the Journeys, Adventures, and Imprisonments of an Englishman, in an Attempt to Circulate the Scriptures in the Peninsula

Borrow, George

Published by John Murray, 1843

First edition. Front joint starting, edge wear, surface tears on front paste-down endpaper. 1843 Hard Cover. x, 328, 6 pp. Leather spine, marbled boards. Borrow, George Henry (1803?1881), writer and traveller, was born on 5 July 1803 at East Dereham in Norfolk, the son of Captain Thomas Borrow (1758?1824), adjutant of the West Norfolk militia, and his wife, Ann (1772?1858), daughter of Samuel Parfrement, a farmer. His elder brother was John Thomas Borrow. Then came several obscure years, the first few months of which were treated with a liberal seasoning of imagination in Lavengro and The Romany Rye. Whether there was, in life, someone as important to Borrow as Isopel Berners was to Lavengro is an unsolved puzzle. For the most part Borrow drifted along, alternating between Norwich and London. Much time was spent fruitlessly on translations; only his Romantic Ballads, Translated from the Danish appeared in print (1826). Stories of extensive foreign travel must be heavily discounted. Borrow was almost thirty before he found, in 1833, employment with the British and Foreign Bible Society. In maturity, he always expressed allegiance to the Church of England, and a strong antipathy for Roman Catholicism: but in introducing him to the Bible Society, his sponsor said Borrow was 'of no very exactly defined denomination of Christians'. Borrow impressed the society not just by his appearance?he was an imposing 6 foot 3 inches, with prematurely grey hair?but by his linguistic capacities. They sent him to St Petersburg (1833?5) to oversee the printing of a Manchu version of the New Testament, and then to Portugal and Spain (1835?40) to distribute the scriptures. In Russia and the Peninsula Borrow worked energetically, and sometimes heroically, on the society's behalf. In Spain, civil war made his expeditions risky, while the hostile attitude of the authorities, coupled with his own provocative approach, led twice to his imprisonment. He was still able to pursue his linguistic and translating interests. In St Petersburg he produced Targum, a volume of translations from thirty languages, and The Talisman ? with other Pieces, from Russian and Polish (both 1835). In Madrid the Bible Society financed the printing of St Luke's gospel translated into Spanish Romani by Borrow and Gypsy friends, and also a Basque version, where Borrow's editorial role was minor (both 1838). By the time his last Spanish tour began, it was clear that Borrow's future with the Bible Society was limited. Increasingly he concerned himself with his own affairs, completing the groundwork for a few books, and thinking up new territory to explore. In mid-1839 he was joined, in the large house he rented in Seville, by a 43-year-old widow and her 21-year-old daughter with whom he had become acquainted shortly before entering the Bible Society's service. The widow, Mary Clarke (1796?1869), whose husband, Henry Clarke, a naval lieutenant, had died in 1818, was the daughter of Edmund Skepper, of Oulton Hall, Suffolk, and his wife, Anne Breame; her daughter was Henrietta Maria Clarke (bap. 1818, d. 1903). Mary Clarke needed to escape from family litigation at home; but all along, she seems quietly to have taken the initiative with Borrow. When he at last complied with the Bible Society's recall, he sailed in the company of the Clarkes. Three weeks later, on 23 April 1840, he married Mary Clarke in London. Borrow settled on his wife's little estate on the shores of Oulton Broad in Suffolk and began turning his experiences to literary account. After a modest start with The Zincali (2 vols., 1841), a book about the Gypsies of Spain and elsewhere, he had a runaway success in 1843 with The Bible in Spain (3 vols.), a stirring account of his adventures in the Peninsula which also satisfied the evangelical temper of the 1840s. He then turned to his earlier life, gradually discovering that he had to transform reality into his own apprehension of the truth. He had set himself a standard o. Seller Inventory # 2335231

Bibliographic Details

Title: The Bible in Spain; or, the Journeys, ...
Publisher: John Murray
Publication Date: 1843
Binding: Hard Cover
Condition: Good
Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket
Edition: First Edition.