(5) [The Talisman: 1835]
The / Talisman. / From the Russian / of / Alexander Pushkin. / With other Pieces. / St. Petersburg. / Printed by Schulz and Beneze, / 1835.
Collation:—Royal octavo, pp. 14; consisting of: Title-page, as above (with a Russian quotation upon the centre of the reverse) pp. 1–2; and Text of The Talisman and other Poems pp. 3–14. There are no head-lines, the pages being numbered centrally in Arabic numerals. Beyond that upon the title-page there is no imprint. There are also no signatures, the pamphlet being composed of a single sheet, folded to form sixteen pages. The last leaf is a blank. The book was issued without any half-title.
Issued stitched, and without wrappers. The leaves measure 9¾ × 6¼ inches.
One Hundred Copies only were printed.
A reduced facsimile of the Title-page of The Talisman is given herewith. It will be observed that the heavy letterpress upon the reverse of the title shows through the paper, and is reproduced in the photograph.
Contents.
| page | |
| The Talisman. [Where fierce the surge with awful bellow] | 3 |
| The Mermaid. [Close by a lake, begirt with forest] | 5 |
| Ancient Russian Songs: | |
| 1. [The windel-straw nor grass so shook and trembled] | 8 |
| 2. [O rustle not, ye verdant oaken branches!] | 9 |
| 3. [O thou field of my delight so fair and verdant!] | 9 |
| Ancient Ballad. [From the wood a sound is gliding] | 11 |
| The Renegade. [Now pay ye the heed that is fitting] | 13 |
Note.—The whole of the poems printed in The Talisman appeared there for the first time.
In 1892 Messrs. Jarrold & Sons published page for page reprints of Targum and The Talisman. They were issued together in one volume, bound in light drab-coloured paper boards, with white paper back-label, and were accompanied by the following collective title-page:
Targum: / or, / Metrical Translations from Thirty Languages / and Dialects. / And / The Talisman, / from the Russian of Alexander Pushkin. / With Other Pieces. / By / George Borrow. / Author of “The Bible in Spain” &c. / London: / Jarrold & Sons, 3, Paternoster Buildings.
In 1912 a small ‘remainder’ of The Talisman came to light. The ‘find’ consisted of about Five Copies, which were sold in the first instance for an equal number of Pence. The buyer appears to have resold them at progressive prices, commencing at Four Pounds and concluding at Ten Guineas.
There is a copy of the First Edition of The Talisman in the Library of the British Museum. The Press-mark is C.57.e.33.
(6) [The Gospel of St. Luke: 1837]
Embéo / e Majaró Lucas. / Brotoboro / randado andré la chipe griega, acána / chibado andré o Romanó, ó chipe es / Zincales de Sesé. / El Evangelio segun S. Lucas, / traducido al Romaní, / ó dialecto de los Gitanos de España. / 1837.
Collation:—Foolscap octavo, pp. 177, consisting of: Title-page, as above (with Borrow’s Colophon upon the reverse, followed by a quotation from the Epistle to the Romans, Chap. XV. v. XXIV.) pp. 1–2; and Text of the Gospel pp. 3–177. The reverse of p. 177 is blank. There are no head-lines, the pages being numbered centrally in Arabic numerals. There is no printer’s imprint. The signatures are A to L (11 sheets, each 8 leaves), plus L repeated (two leaves, the second a blank). The book was issued without any half-title.
I have never seen a copy of the First Edition of Borrow’s translation into the dialect of the Spanish Gypsies of the Gospel of St. Luke in the original binding. No doubt the book (which was printed in Madrid) was put up in paper wrappers, with untrimmed edges, in accordance with the usual Continental custom.
Most of the copies now extant are either in a modern binding, or in contemporary brown calf, with marbled edges and endpapers. The latter are doubtless the copies sent home by Borrow, and bound in leather for that purpose. The leaves of these measure 6 × 4 inches.
As will be seen from the following extracts, it is probable that the First Edition consisted of 250 copies, and that 50 of these were forwarded to London:
“In response to Borrow’s letter of February 27th, the Committee resolved ‘to authorise Mr. Borrow to print 250 copies of the Gospel of St. Luke, without the Vocabulary, in the Rummanee dialect, and to engage the services of a competent person to translate the Gospel of St. Luke by way of trial in the dialect of the Spanish Basque.’”—[Letters of George Borrow to the British and Foreign Bible Society, 1911, pp. 205–206.]
“A small impression of the Gospel of St. Luke, in the Rommany, or Gitano, or Gipsy language, has been printed at Madrid, under the superintendence of this same gentleman, who himself made the translation for the benefit of the interesting, singular, degraded race of people whose name it bears, and who are very numerous in some parts of Spain. He has likewise taken charge of the printing of the Gospel of St. Luke, in the Cantabrian, or Spanish Basque language, a translation of which had fallen into his hands.”—[Thirty-Fourth Annual Report of the British and Foreign Bible Society, 1838, p. xliii.]
“All the Testaments were stopped at the custom house, they were contained in two large chests. . . . The chests, therefore, with the hundred Gospels in Gitano and Basque [probably 50 copies of each] for the Library of the Bible Society are at present at San Lucar in the custom house, from which I expect to receive to-morrow the receipt which the authorities here demand.”—[Borrow’s letter to the Rev. A. Brandram, Seville, May 2nd, 1839.]
A Second Edition of the Gospel was printed in London in 1871. The collation is Duodecimo, pp. 117. This was followed by a Third Edition, London, 1872, the collation of which is also Duodecimo, pp. 117. Both bear the same imprint: “London: / Printed by William Clowes and Sons, Stamford Street, / and Charing Cross.”
For these London Editions the text was considerably revised.
The Gospel of St. Luke in the Basque dialect, referred to in the above paragraphs, is a small octavo volume bearing the following title-page:
Evangelioa / San Lucasen Guissan / El Evangelio segun S. Lucas. / Traducido al vascuence. / Madrid: / Imprenta de la Campañia Tipografica / 1838.
The translation was the work of a Basque physician named Oteiza, and Borrow did little more than see it through the press. The book has, therefore, no claim to rank as a Borrow princeps.
The measure of success which attended his efforts to reproduce the Gospel of St. Luke in these two dialects is best told in Borrow’s own words:
“I subsequently published the Gospel of St. Luke in the Rommany and Biscayan languages. With respect to the first, I beg leave to observe that no work printed in Spain ever caused so great and so general a sensation, not so much amongst the Gypsies, for whom it was intended, as amongst the Spaniards themselves, who, though they look upon the Roma with some degree of contempt, nevertheless take a strange interest in all that concerns them. . . . Respecting the Gospel in Basque I have less to say. It was originally translated into the dialect of Guipuscoa by Dr. Oteiza, and subsequently received corrections and alterations from myself. It can scarcely be said to have been published, it having been prohibited and copies of it seized on the second day of its appearance. But it is in my power to state that it is anxiously expected in the Basque provinces, where books in the aboriginal tongue are both scarce and dear.”—[Borrow’s Survey of his last two years in Spain, printed in his Letters to the Bible Society, 1911, pp. 360–361.]
There is a copy of the First Edition of The Gospel of St. Luke in the dialect of the Spanish Gypsies in the Library of the British Museum. The Press-mark is C.51.aa.12. The Museum also possesses a copy of the Gospel in the Basque dialect; the Pressmark is C.51.aa.13.
