Non-fiction: The Bible in Spain

Overview

George Borrow narrates his travels through Spain as a zealous itinerant Bible distributor, moving between towns and villages to place scripture into the hands of ordinary Spaniards. The narrative combines episodes of evangelical purpose with a restless curiosity about people, languages, and customs, producing a travel account that reads as part missionary journal, part personal adventure. Encounters range from warm, comic, and tender to hostile, and frequent clashes with authorities punctuate his journey.

Episodes and Encounters

Scenes are vivid and episodic: Borrow describes conversations in taverns and market-places, unguarded moments with peasants and clergy, and striking meetings with Romani communities, whom he treats with particular sympathy and fascination. Arrests and short imprisonments recur, often sparked by local suspicion of his motives or the anti-Protestant climate he confronts while distributing Bibles. His escape from bureaucrical or police harassment is narrated with the brisk momentum of a picaresque romp, yet the episodes also expose the real risks of religious dissent in Spain at the time.

Style and Linguistic Curiosity

The narrative voice is lively, colloquial, and richly anecdotal; Borrow's fondness for telling tales about himself and his companions gives the book a conversational charm. He delights in recording local idioms, snatches of song, and the sound of different dialects, often transcribing phrases to show how language reveals character and social life. That linguistic ear supplies both humor and ethnographic insight, as he moves from comic misunderstandings to acute observations about speech, superstition, and cultural resilience.

Themes and Legacy

Religious zeal and cultural empathy sit uneasily together throughout the account: evangelistic determination drives the plot, but the author's warmth toward individuals, especially among Romani groups, creates a humane counterpoint to proselytizing aims. The book functions as travel literature, missionary testimony, and early popular ethnography, and it proved highly influential in shaping Victorian imaginations of Spain. Critics have praised its vitality and narrative gifts while noting Borrow's tendency to self-mythologize and to gloss complex social realities. Despite its biases, the work remains prized for its irrepressible voice, memorable set pieces, and its unusual combination of evangelical fervor with genuine fascination for language and the lives of ordinary people.