Borrow, George (Henry) (1803–1881)

English writer and traveller. He travelled on foot through Europe and the East. His books, incorporating his knowledge of languages and Romany lore, include The Zincali, or an Account of the Gypsies in Spain (1841), The Bible in Spain (1843), Lavengro (1851), The Romany Rye (1857), and Wild Wales (1862).

Borrow was born in East Dereham, Norfolk. He was articled to a solicitor in Norwich but in 1824 he went to London and became a hack writer. Leaving London, he wandered through the English countryside, later extending his travels and walking through parts of France, Austria, and Italy before going to St Petersburg, Russia, 1833–35. There he superintended the translation of the New Testament into Manchu, the court language of China, for the British and Foreign Bible Society.

Returning to England, he took a post as agent of the Bible Society, and travelled through Spain, Portugal, and Morocco 1835–39. In 1840 he retired to Norfolk.

The Zincali, by its extraordinary knowledge of a secretive ethnic group, and The Bible in Spain, by its evocative picture of the country, took the reading world by storm. However, Lavengro and its sequel, The Romany Rye, set mainly in England, disappointed his enthusiastic public.