George Henry Borrow (Cyclopedia of World Authors)
George Henry Borrow (BAHR-oh) was a rara avis of English letters, a man whose life was even more romantic and picaresque than any of his works. The son of an itinerant recruiting officer, he picked up a catch-as-catch-can education, mainly in Edinburgh, Scotland. William Taylor, Robert Southey’s friend, interested the boy in learning languages, in which he developed an extraordinary facility. His curious career as a traveler, autobiographer-novelist, and philologist began when, after a brief period as a solicitor’s apprentice in Norwich and a frustrating career as a publisher’s...
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