The Bible in Spain

Or, the Journeys, Adventures, and Imprisonments of an Englishman, in an Attempt to Circulate the Scriptures in the Peninsula

George Borrow

Reading time: about 16 h
Length: 222,016 words · 392 pages
Structure: 57 chapters · 3 front-matter sections
Language: English
Era: Victorian

In the 1830s, George Borrow spent several years travelling through Spain as an agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society, distributing Protestant scripture in a country where doing so was, depending on the region and the year, merely frowned upon or actively illegal. The Bible in Spain recounts those years — arrests, bandits, gypsy encampments, and long stretches of remote Spanish road — with Borrow's usual mix of firsthand reporting and tall-tale flourish.

Published in 1843, The Bible in Spain was an immediate popular success and remains the best-known of Borrow's travel narratives.

Bibliomancer publishes the 1843 text exactly as George Borrow wrote it.

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About this edition

The text is free of copyright. This edition was prepared from an authoritative digitisation, processed by Bibliomancer under its own review protocol; every automated correction is recorded in its transformation log. Rights assessed for CA, EU, GB, US.

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About the author

George Borrow

1803–1881 · Victorian

George Borrow (1803–1881) was an English writer and self-taught linguist who, after early attempts at law and hack journalism, travelled through Russia and Spain from the 1830s as an agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society, distributing scripture translations and forming the acquaintance with Romani people that runs through his work. The Bible in Spain (1843), his account of those years, was an immediate success; two autobiographical narratives followed, Lavengro (1851) and its sequel The Romany Rye (1857). He settled at Oulton Broad in Norfolk, where he died.

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