The Bible in Spain

This 1843 travelogue, describing Spain and its 'exotic' population, was hugely successful with early Victorian readers.

In this lively three-volume account first published in 1843, the British adventurer and agent of the Bible Society, George Henry Borrow, describes his travels in Spain during the 1830s distributing the scriptures. The book's mixture of exotic travelogue and anti-Catholic sentiment proved very popular with early Victorian readers.George Borrow (1803–1881) was a British author, adventurer, and agent of the Bible Society whose journeys in the mid-nineteenth century took him to both Russia and Spain. His experiences are reflected in books including The Zincali (1841) and his best-known publication, The Bible in Spain (1843). Described by Borrow as 'the journey, adventures, and imprisonment of an Englishman in an attempt to circulate the scriptures in the peninsula', it is mostly a compilation of his voluminous correspondence with the Bible Society. In this first volume, Borrow describes his arrival at Lisbon, his impressions of cities including Madrid and Cordoba and his interactions with the local population, including Gypsies, whose culture he found particularly fascinating. The book, at once an exotic travelogue and a document revealing the religious tensions of the period, was enthusiastically received by early Victorian readers.