ge Borrow_, _Esq._, / _Author of_ "_The
Bible in Spain_," _etc._ / _In Three Volumes_. / _Vol. i_. / _London_: /
_John Murray_, _Albemarle Street_. / 1849.

Only two examples of the volume with this interesting early title-page
are known to have survived. One of these is now in the possession of the
Hispanic Society, of New York. The other is the property of Mr. Otto
Kyllmann.

Later in the same year Murray advertised the work under the following
title:--

_Lavengro_, _An Autobiography_. _By George Borrow_, _Esq._, _&c._

The same title was employed in the advertisements of 1850.

Mr. Clement Shorter possesses the original draft of the first portion of
_Lavengro_. In this draft the title-page appears in its earliest form,
and describes the book as _Some Account of the Life_, _Pursuits_, _and
Adventures of a Norfolk Man_. A facsimile of this tentative title was
given by Mr. Shorter in _George Borrow and his Circle_, 1913, p. 280.

"Borrow took many years to write _Lavengro_. 'I am writing the
work,' he told Dawson Turner, 'in precisely the same manner as _The
Bible in Spain_, viz. on blank sheets of old account-books, backs of
letters,' &c., and he recalls Mahomet writing the Koran on mutton
bones as an analogy to his own 'slovenliness of manuscript.' I have
had plenty of opportunity of testing this slovenliness in the
collection of manuscripts of portions of _Lavengro_ that have come
into my possession. These are written upon pieces of paper of all
shapes and sizes, although at least a third of the book in Borrow's
very neat handwriting is contained in a leather notebook. The
title-page demonstrates the earliest form of Borrow's conception.
Not only did he then contemplate an undisguised autobiography, but
even described himself as 'a Norfolk man.' Before the book was
finished, however, he repudiated the autobiographical note, and we
find him fiercely denouncing his critics for coming to such a
conclusion. 'The writer,' he declares, 'never said it was an
autobiography; never authorised any person to say it was one.' Which
was doubtless true, in a measure."--[_George Borrow and his Circle_,
1913, pp. 279-281].

There is a copy of the First Edition of _Lavengro_ in the Library of the
British Museum. The Press-mark is 12622. f. 7.

(12.) [THE ROMANY RYE: 1857]

The / Romany Rye; / A Sequel to "Lavengro." / By George Bo