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

Celebrated Trials, / and / Remarkable Cases / of / Criminal Jurisprudence, / from / The Earliest Records / to / The Year 1825. / [Thirteen-line quotation from Burke] / In Six Volumes. / Vol. I. [Vol. II, &c.] / London: / Printed for Knight and Lacey, / Paternoster-Row. / 1825. / Price £3. 12s. in Boards.

Collation:—Demy octavo.

Vol. I. Pp. xiii + v + 550, with nine engraved Plates.

Vol. II. „ vi + 574, with seven engraved Plates.

[P. 574 is misnumbered 140.]

Vol. III. „ vi + 572, with three engraved Plates.

Vol. IV. „ vi + 600, with five engraved Plates.

Vol. V. „ vi + 684, with five engraved Plates.

Vol. VI. „ viii + 576 + an Index of 8 pages, together with six engraved Plates.

Issued in drab paper boards, with white paper back-labels. The leaves measure 8⅝ × 5 inches.

It is evident that no fewer than five different printing houses were employed simultaneously in the production of this work.

The preliminary matter of all six volumes was printed together, and the reverse of each title-page carries at foot the following imprint: “London: / Shackell and Arrowsmith, Johnson’s-Court, Fleet-Street.”

The same firm also worked the whole of the Second Volume, and their imprint is repeated at the foot of p. 574 [misnumbered 140].

Vol. I bears, at the foot of p. 550, the following imprint: “Printed by W. Lewis, 21, Finch-Lane, Cornhill.”

Vol. III bears, at the foot of p. 572, the following imprint: “J. and C. Adlard, Printers, / Bartholomew Close.”

Vols. IV and VI bear, at the foot of pages 600 and 576 respectively, the following imprint: “D. Sidney & Co., Printers / Northumberland-street, Strand.”

Vol. V bears, at the foot of p. 684, the following imprint: “Whiting and Branston, / Beaufort House, Strand.”

Both Dr. Knapp and Mr. Clement Shorter have recorded full particulars of the genesis of the Celebrated Trials. Mr. Shorter devotes a considerable portion of Chapter xi of George Borrow and his Circle to the subject, and furnishes an analysis of the contents of each of the six volumes. Celebrated Trials is, of course, the Newgate Lives and Trials of Lavengro, in which book Borrow contrived to make a considerable amount of entertaining narrative out of his early struggles and failures.

There is a Copy of the First Edition of Celebrated Trials in the Library of the British Museum. The Press-mark is 518.g.6.

(2) [Faustus: 1825]

Faustus: / His / Life, Death, / and / Descent into Hell. / Translated from the German. / Speed thee, speed thee, / Liberty lead thee, / Many this night shall harken and heed thee. / Far abroad, / Demi-god, / Who shall appal thee! / Javal, or devil, or what else we call thee. / Hymn to the Devil. / London: / W. Simpkin and R. Marshall. / 1825.

Collation:—Foolscap octavo, pp. xii + 251; consisting of: Half-title (with imprint “Printed by / J. and C. Adlard, Bartholomew Close” at the foot of the reverse) pp. i–ii; Title-page, as above (with blank reverse) pp. iii–iv; Preface (headed The Translator to the Public) pp. v–viii; Table of Contents pp. ix–xii; and Text pp. 1–251. The reverse of p. 251 is occupied by Advertisements of Horace Welby’s Signs before Death, and John Timbs’s Picturesque Promenade round Dorking. The headline is Faustus throughout, upon both sides of the page. At the foot of the reverse of p. 251 the imprint is repeated thus, “J. and C. Adlard, Bartholomew Close.” The signatures are A (6 leaves), B to Q (15 sheets, each 8 leaves), plus R (6 leaves).

Issued (in April, 1825) in bright claret-coloured linen boards, with white paper back-label. The leaves measure 6¾ × 4¼ inches. The published price was 7s. 6d.

The volume has as Frontispiece a coloured plate, engraved upon copper, representing the supper of the sheep-headed Magistrates, described on pp. 64–66. The incident selected for illustration is the moment when the wine ‘issued in blue flames from the flasks,’ and ‘the whole assembly sat like so many ridiculous characters in a mad masquerade.’ This illustration was not new to Borrow’s book. It had appeared both in the German original,

and in the French translation of 1798. In the original work the persons so bitterly satirized were the individuals composing the Corporation of Frankfort.

In 1840 ‘remainder’ copies of the First Edition of Faustus were issued with a new title-page, pasted upon a stub, carrying at foot the following publishers’ imprint, “London: / Simpkin, Marshall & Co. / 1840.” They were made up in bright claret-coloured linen boards, uniform with the original issue, with a white paper back-label. The published price was again 7s. 6d.

Faustus was translated by Borrow from the German of Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger. Mr. Shorter suggests, with much reason, that Borrow did not make his translation from the original German edition of 1791, but from a French translation published in Amsterdam in 1798.

The reception accorded to Faustus was the reverse of favourable. The Literary Gazette said (July 16th, 1825):—

“This is another work to which no respectable publisher ought to have allowed his name to be put. The political allusion and metaphysics, which may have made it popular among a low class in Germany, do not sufficiently season its lewd scenes and coarse descriptions for British palates. We have occasionally publications for the fireside,—these are only fit for the fire.”

Borrow’s translation of Klinger’s novel was reprinted in 1864, without any acknowledgment of the name of the translator. Only a few stray words in the text were altered. But five passages were deleted from the Preface, which, not being otherwise modified or supplemented, gave—as was no doubt the intention of the publishers—the work the appearance of a new translation specially prepared. This unhallowed edition bears the following title-page:

Faustus: / His / Life, Death, and Doom. / A Romance in Prose. / Translated from the German. / [Quotation as in the original edition, followed by a Printer’s ornament.] / London: / W. Kent and Co., Paternoster Row. / 1864.—Crown 8vo, pp. viii + 302.

“There is no reason to suppose,” remarks Mr. Shorter (George Borrow and his Circle, p. 104) “that the individual, whoever he may have been, who prepared the 1864 edition of Faustus for the Press, had ever seen either the German original or the French translation of Klinger’s book.”

There is a copy of the First Edition of Faustus in the Library of the British Museum. The Press-mark is N.351.

(3) [Romantic Ballads: 1826]

Romantic Ballads, / Translated from the Danish; / and / Miscellaneous Pieces; / By / George Borrow. / Through gloomy paths unknown— / Paths which untrodden be, / From rock to rock I roam / Along the dashing sea. / Bowring. / Norwich: / Printed and Published by S. Wilkin, Upper Haymarket. / 1826.

Collation:—Demy octavo, pp. xii + 187; consisting of: Half-title (with imprint “Norwich: / Printed by S. Wilkin, Upper Haymarket” upon the centre of the reverse) pp. i–ii; Title-page, as above (with blank reverse) pp. iii–iv; Table of Contents (with blank reverse) pp. v–vi; Preface pp. vii–viii; Prefatory Poem From Allan Cunningham to George Borrow pp. ix–xi, p. xii is blank; Text of the Ballads pp. 1–184; and List of Subscribers pp. 185–187. The reverse of p. 187 is blank. There are head-lines throughout, each page being headed with the title of the Ballad occupying it.

The imprint is repeated at the foot of p. 184. The signatures are a (a half-sheet of 4 leaves), b (a quarter-sheet of 2 leaves), B to M (eleven sheets, each 8 leaves), and N (a half-sheet of 4 leaves), followed by an unsigned quarter-sheet of 2 leaves carrying the List of Subscribers. [12] Sigs. G 5 and H 2 (pp. 89–90 and 99–100) are cancel-leaves, mounted on stubs, in every copy I have met with.

Issued (in May 1826) in dark greenish-grey paper boards, with white paper back-label, lettered “Romantic / Ballads / From the / Danish By / G. Borrow / Price 10/6 net.” The leaves measure 9 × 5½ inches.

The volume of Romantic Ballads was printed at Norwich during the early months of 1826. The edition consisted of Five Hundred Copies, but only Two Hundred of these were furnished with the Title-page transcribed above. These were duly distributed to the subscribers. The remaining Three Hundred copies were forwarded to London, where they were supplied with the two successive title-pages described below, and published in the ordinary manner.

“I had an idea that, provided I could persuade any spirited publisher to give these translations to the world, I should acquire both considerable fame and profit; not perhaps a world-embracing fame such as Byron’s, but a fame not to be sneered at, which would last me a considerable time, and would keep my heart from breaking;—profit, not equal to that which Scott had made by his wondrous novels, but which would prevent me from starving, and enable me to achieve some other literary enterprise. I read and re-read my ballads, and the more I read them

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