More on The Zincali

Borrow wrote most of The Zincali (also known as The Gypsies of Spain) while working for the Bible Society in Spain. At the start of the book he says that 'Throughout my life the Gypsy race has always had a peculiar interest to me' and that 'Whatever [I have] asserted is less the result of reading than of close observation'.

Although the bulk of the book is devoted to describing the lifestyle, habits, and language of the Spanish Gypsies, Borrow also gives quite extensive descriptions of Gypsies he has met in Russia and in England (including our first portrait of Mr Petulengro, who would feature so prominently in Lavengro), plus some information about Gypsies in Hungary and Turkey.

Borrow points out that the most striking thing about the Spanish Gypsies was that they had abandoned their itinerant lifestyle and had settled in the towns, especially Madrid and Seville, where there were extensive Gypsy neighbourhoods. He claims that he has depicted the Gypsies 'as I have found them' and is at pains to dispel some of the more common myths about Gypsies.

Although this was Borrow’s first published work, it set the template for all his later work - discursive, opinionated, a mixture of arcane learning and close observation, with lengthy sections where he gives his informants their own voice in order to tell their own stories.

The book was a minor sensation, being reprinted twice over the next two years. In the 1843 Preface Borrow proudly noted that the book had been judged to be 'a work with some pretensions to originality.' It was also a big influence on the French writer Prosper Mérimée, whose novella Carmen (later adapted by Bizet into the popular opera) was partly modelled on The Zincali.