A Bibliography of the writings in Prose and Verse of George Henry Borrow

Transcribed from the 1914 Richard Clay and Sons edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
by THOMAS J. WISE
LONDON: PRINTED FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION ONLY By Richard Clay & Sons, ltd. 1914
Of this book One Hundred Copies Only have been Printed.
The object of the present Bibliography is to give a concise account, accompanied by accurate collations, of the original editions of the Books and Pamphlets of George Borrow, together with a list of his many contributions to Magazines and other Publications. It will doubtless be observed that no inconsiderable portion of the Bibliography deals with the attractive series of Pamphlets containing Ballads, Poems, and other works by Borrow which were printed for Private Circulation during the course of last year. Some account of the origin of these pamphlets, and some information regarding the material of which they are composed, may not be considered as inopportune or inappropriate.
As a writer of English Prose Borrow long since achieved the position which was his due; as a writer of English Verse he has yet to come by his own.
The neglect from which Borrow’s poetical compositions (by far the larger proportion of which are translations from the Danish and other tongues) have suffered has arisen from one cause, and from one cause alone,—the fact that up to the present moment only his earliest and, in the majority of cases, his least successful efforts have been available to students of his work.
In 1826, when Borrow passed his Romantic Ballads through the Press, he had already acquired a working knowledge of numerous languages and dialects, but of his native tongue he had still to become a master. In 1826 his appreciation of the requirements of English Prosody was of a vague description, his sense of the rhythm of verse was crude, and the attention he paid to the exigencies of rhyme was inadequate. Hence the majority of his Ballads, beyond the fact that they were faithful reproductions of the originals from which they had been laboriously translated, were of no particular value.