''Lavengro: The Scholar, the Gypsy, the Priest'' (1851) is a work by

George Borrow George Henry Borrow (5 July 1803 – 26 July 1881) was an English writer of novels and of travel based on personal experiences in Europe. His travels gave him a close affinity with the Romani people of Europe, who figure strongly in his work. Hi ...

, falling somewhere between the genres of memoir and novel, which has long been considered a classic of 19th-century English literature. According to the author, is a Romany word meaning "word master". The historian

G. M. Trevelyan George Macaulay Trevelyan (16 February 1876 – 21 July 1962) was a British historian and academic. He was a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, from 1898 to 1903. He then spent more than twenty years as a full-time author. He returned to the ...

called it "a book that breathes the spirit of that period of strong and eccentric characters". Its protagonist, whose name is George, is born the son of an officer in a militia regiment and is brought up in various barrack towns in England, Scotland and Ireland. After serving an apprenticeship to a lawyer he moves to London and becomes a

Grub Street Until the early 19th century, Grub Street was a street close to London's impoverished Moorfields district that ran from Fore Street east of St Giles-without-Cripplegate north to Chiswell Street. It was pierced along its length with narrow ent ...

hack, an occupation which gives him ample opportunities to observe London low-life. Finally he takes to the road as a tinker. At various points through the book he associates with Romany travellers, of whom he gives memorable and generally sympathetic pen-portraits. ''Lavengro'' was followed by a sequel, ''

The Romany Rye ''The Romany Rye'' is a novel by George Borrow, written in 1857 as a sequel to ''Lavengro'' (1851). The novel Largely thought to be at least partly autobiographical, ''The Romany Rye'' follows from ''Lavengro'' (1851). The title can be transl ...

''. However, neither of the two books are self-contained. Rather, ''Lavengro'' ends abruptly with chapter 100, and carries on directly in ''The Romany Rye''. Thus, both need to be read together, in order. Borrow began work on ''Lavengro'' in 1842 and had written most of it by the end of 1843, but progress was then interrupted by a tour of eastern Europe and by bouts of ill-health, physical and mental. He certainly intended the book to be an autobiography when he first set to work, and while writing it he more than once called it his Life in letters to his publisher, John Murray. In 1848 Murray advertised it as a forthcoming work to be called ''Lavengro, an Autobiography''. However the version Borrow finally delivered had been reshaped into an autobiographical novel whose fictional episodes are inextricably intertwined with genuine memoir. Only the "scholar" in the book's subtitle refers to Borrow. The first edition had a print-run of only 3000 copies; it was such a slow seller that no reprint was needed until 1872. Nor was it a critical success, reviewers being annoyed by the mix of fact and fiction and finding the treatment of Romany life insufficiently quaint. ''

Blackwood's Magazine ''Blackwood's Magazine'' was a British magazine and miscellany printed between 1817 and 1980. It was founded by the publisher William Blackwood and was originally called the ''Edinburgh Monthly Magazine''. The first number appeared in April 1817 ...

'' brought in a typical verdict:

We looked for some new revelations on the subjects of fortune-telling, hocus-pocus, and glamour. Lavengro, with his three attributes like those of
Vishnu Vishnu ( ; , ), also known as Narayana and Hari, is one of the principal deities of Hinduism. He is the supreme being within Vaishnavism, one of the major traditions within contemporary Hinduism. Vishnu is known as "The Preserver" within t ...
, might possibly be the Grand
Cazique A ''cacique'' (Latin American ; ; feminine form: ''cacica'') was a tribal chieftain of the Taíno people, the indigenous inhabitants at European contact of the Bahamas, the Greater Antilles, and the northern Lesser Antilles. The term is a Sp ...
, the supreme prince of the nation of tinkers! We have read the book, and we are disappointed. The performance bears no adequate relation to the promise…The adventures, though interesting in their way, neither bear the impress of the stamp of truth, nor are they so arranged as to make the work valuable, if we consider it in the light of fiction.

After Borrow's death in 1881 ''Lavengro'' began to find a new audience and enthusiastic praise from critics. Theodore Watts, in an introduction to the 1893 edition, declared that "There are passages in ''Lavengro'' which are unsurpassed in the prose literature of England". This edition started a run of reprints which produced one or more almost every year for 60 years. ''Lavengro'' was included in the

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

World's Classics series in 1904, and in

Everyman's Library Everyman's Library is a series of reprints of classic literature, primarily from the Western canon. It is currently published in hardback by Random House. It was originally an imprint of J. M. Dent (itself later a division of Weidenfeld & Ni ...

in 1906.Catalogue entry
at

Copac Copac (originally an acronym of Consortium of Online Public Access Catalogues) was a union catalogue which provided free access to the merged online catalogues of many major research libraries and specialist libraries in the United Kingdom and Ire ...

Notes

External links

* {{StandardEbooks, Standard Ebooks URL=https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/george-borrow/lavengro
Page scans at the Internet Archive

of ''Lavengro'' and ''

'' by Anthony Campbell 1851 British novels English novels British autobiographical novels Fictional representations of Romani people George Borrow