George Borrow (linguist and missionary)
George Henry Borrow (5 July 1803 – 26 July 1881) was an English writer of novels and of travel based on personal experiences in Europe. His travels gave him a close affinity with the Romani people of Europe, who figure strongly in his work. His best-known books are The Bible in Spain and the novels Lavengro and The Romany Rye set in his time with the English Romanicha (Gypsies). Borrow's precocious linguistic skills as a youth made him a protégé of the Norwich-born scholar William Taylor whom he depicted in his autobiographical novel Lavengro (1851) as an advocate of German Romantic literature Recalling his youth in Norwich some 30 years earlier, Borrow depicted an old man (Taylor) and a young man (Borrow) discussing the merits of German literature, including Johann Wolfgang van Goethe’s The Sorrows of young Werther. With Taylor's encouragement, Borrow embarked on his first translation a version of the Faust legend, entitled Faustus, his Life, Death and Descent into Hel...