Lavengro — Story, Setting & Ideas

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In Category - Historical Psychological Social Fiction

Authors: Borrow, George, 1803-1881, Groome, Francis Hindes, 1851-1902 [Editor] Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2007 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: England -- Fiction; Romanies -- Fiction Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 115,041

Reading time 501 min

Text sections 11

Before opening Lavengro — Story, Setting & Ideas, the edition data offers a quick orientation: 115,041 words, 8 hr 21 min estimated reading time, and 11 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 25.1 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “England -- Fiction,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #22877

George Borrow's Lavengro blends autobiography, fiction, and Romany lore in a picaresque narrative. The work's structure alternates between scholarly reflection and gypsy encounters, with recurring images of travel, language, and the tension between settled and wandering life.

Editorial Edition Score 4.8/5

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Description quality20 pts
Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
EPUB file integrity20 pts

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Edition quality

File: pg22877

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These were Borrow's chief predecessors, but the list could be largely extended by making it include such names as those of Sir John Popham (1531-1607), Lord Chief-Justice of England; Sir William Sinclair, Lord Justice-General of Scotland from 1559; Mr. William Sympsoune, a great Scottish doctor of medicine towards the close of the sixteenth century; the Countess of Cassillis (1643), who did _not_ elope with Johnnie Faa; Richard Head (_c._ 1637-86), the author of _The English Rogue_; William Marsden (1754-1836), the Orientalist; John Wilson ("Christopher North," 1785-1854); the Rev. John Baird, minister of Yetholm 1829-61; G. P. R. James (1801-60), the novelist; and Sam Bough (1822-78), the landscape- painter. And after Borrow come many; the following are but a few of them:--John Phillip, R.A., Tom Taylor, the Rev. T. W. Norwood, George S. Phillips ("January Searle"), Charles Kingsley, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Mr. Charles Godfrey Leland ("Hans Breitmann"), Prof. Edward Henry Palmer, Sir Richard Burton, Bath C. Smart, M.D., of Manchester, Mr. H. T. Crofton, Major Whyte-Melville, Mr. Joseph Lucas, the Rev. R. N. Sanderson, Dr. D. Fearon Ranking, Mr. David MacRitchie, Mr. G. R. Sims, Mr. George Meredith, Mr. Theodore Watts-Dunton, "F. W. Carew, M.D," and Mr. John Sampson.

Thus, leaving aside all the foreign Romany Ryes, from the great engraver Jacques Callot to the present Polish novelist Sienkiewicz, we see that Borrow was not quite so _sui generis_ as he claimed for himself, and as others have often claimed for him. The meagreness of his knowledge of the Anglo-Gypsy dialect came out in his _Word-Book of the Romany_ (1874); there must have been over a dozen Englishmen who have known it far better than he. For his Spanish-Gypsy vocabulary in _The Zincali_ he certainly drew largely either on Richard Bright's _Travels through Lower Hungary_ or on Bright's Spanish authority, whatever that may have been. His knowledge of the strange history of the Gypsies was very elementary, of their manners almost more so, and of their folk-lore practically _nil_. And yet I would put George Borrow above every other writer on the Gypsies. In _Lavengro_ and, to a less degree, in its sequel, _The Romany Rye_, he communicates a subtle insight into Gypsydom that is totally wanting in the works--mainly philological--of Pott, Liebich, Paspati, Miklosich, and their confreres. Take his first meeting with Gypsies in the green lane near Norman Cross. There are flaws in it: he never would have spoken of the Gypsy beldame as "my mother there," nor could he possibly have guessed that the Romany _sap_ means "snake." Yet compare it with Maggie Tulliver's Gypsy adventure in _The Mill on the Floss_: how vivid and vigorous the one, how tame and commonplace the other. I am not going to dilate on the beauties of _Lavengro_; they seem to me sufficiently self-evident. But there is one point about the book that deserves some considering, its credibility as autobiography. Professor Knapp, Borrow's biographer, seems to place implicit confidence in _Lavengro_; I find myself unable to agree with him. Borrow may really have written the story of _Joseph Sell_ for a collection of Christmas tales; he may really have camped for some weeks as a tinker near Willenhall; "Belle Berners" may really have had some prototype; and he may really have bought the splendid horse of the Willenhall tavern-keeper, and sold it afterwards at Horncastle. But is the "Man in Black," then, also a reality, and the "Reverend Mr. Platitude," who thanks God that he has left all his Church of England prejudices in Italy? in other words, did Tractarianism exist in 1825, eight years before it was engendered by Keble's sermon? David Haggart, again, the Scottish Jack Sheppard,--Borrow describes him as "a lad of some fifteen years," with "prodigious breadth of chest," and as defeating in single combat a full-grown baker's apprentice. Borrow well may have seen him, for in July 1813 he really enlisted as a drummer in Borrow's father's regiment, newly quartered in Edinburgh Castle; but he was not fifteen then, only twelve years old. And the Jew pedlar scene in the first chapter, and the old apple-woman's son in the sixty-second!

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From its opening pages, Lavengro announces itself as a work of layered identities. The subtitle—The Scholar; The Gypsy; The Priest—signals three poles of experience, yet the narrative moves restlessly among them, never settling. Borrow’s prose shifts between intimate recollection and expansive digression, as when the narrator recalls his brother’s artistic ambitions in a passage that suddenly veers into a meditation on perseverance and calling. The editor’s introduction, tracing earlier “Romany Ryes” like Andrew Boorde, frames the book as part of a tradition of Gypsy scholarship, but the text itself resists easy categorization.

A Narrative of Shifting Ground

The structure of Lavengro is episodic, moving from childhood scenes to encounters with strangers, each episode linked less by plot than by the narrator’s restless curiosity. The brother’s departure for London and Italy, described in detail, gives way to the narrator’s own journey, but the narrative lingers on digressions—a description of St. Peter’s, a discussion of Keysler’s Travels—that seem to pull the story sideways. This movement mirrors the narrator’s own ambivalence: he is drawn to both the settled life of learning and the open road of the Gypsies. The text’s rhythm, with its long paragraphs and sudden shifts in focus, creates a sense of wandering that is central to its effect.

The Weight of Words and Names

Language itself becomes a recurring image in Lavengro. The narrator’s fascination with words—Romany phrases, place names, the titles of books—is evident throughout. The editor’s introduction highlights Borrow’s own mastery of Romany, and the text is peppered with linguistic observations. The brother’s plan to find the Transfiguration in Rome is described with a cartographer’s precision: “I must presently turn to the right, up a rather shabby street.” This attention to naming and locating suggests that for Borrow, to name a thing is to possess it, yet the Gypsies remain elusive, their language a key that never fully unlocks their world. The tension between the fixed word and the wandering speaker runs through the narrative.

Encounters on the Threshold

Many of the book’s most vivid scenes occur at thresholds: the edge of a camp, the door of a cottage, the moment before a departure. The brother’s leave-taking is described with a mixture of envy and foreboding: “I should like to go with you,” says the narrator, but he is told to stay. Later, the narrator himself will cross such boundaries, meeting Gypsies and strangers in liminal spaces. These encounters are charged with the possibility of transformation, yet the narrative often pulls back, leaving the outcome uncertain. The structure of the book, with its abrupt transitions and unresolved episodes, mirrors this pattern of approach and withdrawal, as if the narrator is perpetually on the verge of crossing over but never quite doing so.

The Editor’s Frame and the Author’s Voice

Francis Hindes Groome’s introduction places Borrow within a lineage of “Romany Ryes,” from Andrew Boorde to the legendary Oxford scholar who joined the Gypsies. This framing invites the reader to see Lavengro as both a personal narrative and a contribution to Gypsy studies. Yet the text itself resists such categorization. The narrator’s voice is idiosyncratic, blending learned references with colloquial asides. The editor’s notes, while informative, cannot contain the book’s digressive energy. The interplay between the scholarly apparatus and the wandering narrative creates a tension that is central to the reading experience: the reader, like the narrator, is caught between the desire for order and the lure of the open road.

Lavengro rewards a patient reading that attends to its shifts in tone and direction. The book’s structure—episodic, digressive, and often unresolved—invites the reader to wander alongside the narrator, noticing the recurring images of travel, language, and encounter. Rather than seeking a single plot, consider how each episode echoes or complicates the others. The editor’s introduction provides context, but the text itself remains elusive, a work that continually slips the grasp of any single interpretation.

Borrow’s wanderer always carried his books like old friends, and reading Lavengro, I recall how a settled heart can still crave the open road. That same quiet ache lives in The Love Affairs of an Old Maid — Reading Companion, where solitude becomes a kind of company. Two volumes, two restless souls, one familiar hush between pages.