Norwich.

The Talisman. From the Russian of Alexander Pushkin. With Other Pieces. St Petersburg.

1841

The Zincali; or, An Account of the Gypsies of Spain. With an Original Collection of their Songs and Poetry, and a Copious Dictionary of their Language. Two volumes. John Murray, London.

1842

The Bible in Spain; or, the Journeys, Adventures, and Imprisonments of an Englishman in an Attempt to Circulate the Scriptures in the Peninsula. Three volumes. John Murray, London.

Lavengro: The Scholar--The Gypsy--The Priest. Three volumes. John Murray, London.

The Romany Rye: a Sequel to Lavengro. Two volumes. John Murray, London.

The Sleeping Bard; or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell. By Elis Wyn. Translated from the Cambrian British. John Murray, London.

1862

Wild Wales: Its People, Language, and Scenery. Three volumes. John Murray, London.

Romano Lavo-Lil: Word-Book of Romany; or, English Gypsy Language. With Many Pieces in Gypsy, Illustrative of the Way of Speaking and Thinking of the English Gypsies; with Specimens of Their Poetry, and an Account of Certain Gypsyries or Places Inhabited by Them, and of Various Things Relating to Gypsy Life in England. John Murray, London.

1884

The Turkish Jester; or, the Pleasantries of Cogia Nasr Eddin Effendi. Translated from the Turkish. Jarrold & Sons, Norwich.

1892

The Death of Balder. Translated from the Danish of Evald. Jarrold & Sons, Norwich.

From the foregoing list has been omitted the mysterious Life and Adventures of Joseph Sell, the Great Traveller, and those works that Borrow edited or translated for the British and Foreign Bible Society.

Footnotes:

{3a} Afterwards General Morshead and friend of the Duke of York. Captain Morshead, himself a Cornishman, is credited with doing everything in his power to dissuade Thomas Borrow from enlisting, but without result.

{4a} Lavengro, page 2. References to Borrow's works throughout this volume are to the Standard Edition, published by John Murray.

{4b} Ann, the third of eight children born to Samuel Perfrement and Mary his wife, 23rd January 1772.

{4c} Locally, the name is pronounced "PARfrement." This is quite in accordance with the Norfolk dialect, which changes "e" into "a." Thus "Ernest" becomes "Arnest"; "Earlham," "Arlham"; "Erpingham," "Arpingham," and so on. In Norfolk there are grave peculiarities of pronunciation, which have caused many a stranger to wish that he had never enquired his way, so puzzling are the replies hurled at him in an incomprehensible vernacular.

{5a} Married the Rev. Wm. Holland, rector of Walmer and afterwards rector of Brasted, Kent.

{6a} Lavengro, page 5.

{6b} Lavengro, page 5.

{7a} George in honour of the King, it is said, and Henry after his father's eldest brother.

{7b} Lavengro, page 6.

{7c} Lavengro, page 6.

{7d} Lavengro, page 6.

{7e} Lavengro, page 7.

{7f} Lavengro, page 7.

{9a} Lavengro, page 16.

{9b} The widow of Sir John Fenn, editor of the Paston Letters.

{9c} Lavengro, page 15.

{10a} Lavengro, pages 398-9.

{10b} "Many years have not passed over my head, yet during those which I can call to remembrance, how many things have I seen flourish, pass away, and become forgotten, except by myself, who, in spite of all my endeavours, never can forget anything."--Lavengro, page 166.

{10c} Lavengro, page 16.

{11a} Lavengro, pages 19-20.

{11b} Lavengro, page 22.

{12a} The gypsies "have a double nomenclature, each tribe or family having a public and private name, one by which they are known to the Gentiles, and another to themselves alone . . . There are only two names of trades which have been adopted by English gypsies as proper names, Cooper and Smith: these names are expressed in the English gypsy dialect by Vardo-mescro and Petulengro (Romano Lavo-Lil, page 185). Thus the Smiths are known among themselves as the Petulengros. Petul, a horse shoe, and engro a "masculine affix used in the formation of figurative names." Thus Boshomengro (a fiddler) comes from Bosh a fiddle, Cooromengro (a soldier, a pugilist) from Coor = to fight.

{12b} The Rev. Wentworth Webster heard narrated at a provincial Bible Society's meeting that when Borrow first called at Earl Street "he said that he had been stolen by gypsies in his boyhood, had passed several years with them, but had been recognised at a fair in Norfolk and brought home to his family by his uncle." There is, however, nothing to confirm this story.

{13a} Lavengro, page 164.

{13b} The prisoners occupied much of their time in straw-plait making; but the quality of their work was so much superior to that of the English that it was forbidden, and consequently destroyed when found.

{13c} Lavengro, page 45.

{14a} David Haggart, born 24th June 1801, was an instinctive criminal, who, at Leith Races, in 1813, enlisted, whilst drunk, as a drummer in the West Norfolks. Eventually he obtained his discharge and continued on his career of crime and prison-breaking, among other things murdering a policeman and a gaoler, until, on 18th July 1821, he was hanged at Edinburgh.

{15a} Lavengro, page 138.

{15b} John Crome (1768-1821), landscape painter. Apprenticed 1783 as sign-painter; introduced into Norwich the art of graining; founded the Norwich School of Painting; first exhibited at the Royal Academy 1806.

{17a} Borrow was always a magnificent horseman. "Vaya! how you ride! It is dangerous to be in your way!" said the Archbishop of Toledo to him years later. In The Bible in Spain he wrote that he had "been accustomed from . . . childhood to ride without a saddle." The Rev. Wentworth Webster states that in Madrid "he used to ride with a Russian skin for a saddle and WITHOUT STIRRUPS."

{20a} Letter from "A School-fellow of Lavengro" in The Britannia, 26th April 1851.

{21a} "It is probable, that had I been launched about this time into some agreeable career, that of arms, for example, for which, being the son of a soldier, I had, as was natural, a sort of penchant, I might have thought nothing more of the acquisition of tongues of any kind; but, having nothing to do, I followed the only course suited to my genius which appeared open to me."--Lavengro, page 89.

{21b} The Rev. Thomas D'Eterville, M.A., "Poor Old Detterville," as the Grammar School boys called him, of Caen University, who arrived at Norwich in 1793. He acquired a small fortune by teaching languages. There were rumours that he was engaged in the contraband trade, an occupation more likely to bring fortune than teaching languages.

{21c} Letter from "A School-fellow of Lavengro" in The Britannia, 26th April 1851.

{22a} It was here, in 1827, that he saw the world's greatest trotter, Marshland Shales, and in common with other lovers of horses lifted his hat to salute "the wondrous horse, the fast trotter, the best in mother England." In Lavengro Borrow antedated this event by some nine years.

{23a} Manuscript autobiographical notes supplied by Borrow to Mr John Longe, 1862.

{24a} Lavengro, page 134.

{25a} This account is taken from a letter by "A Schoolfellow of Lavengro" in The Britannia, 26th April 1851.