Traveller 1: “In Spain I passed five years, which, if not the most eventful, were, I have no hesitation in saying, the most happy years of my existence. Of Spain, at the present time, now that the daydream has vanished, never, alas! to return, I entertain the warmest admiration: she is the most magnificent country in the world, probably the most fertile, and certainly with the finest climate. Whether her children are worthy of their mother, is another question, which I shall not attempt to answer; but content myself with observing, that, amongst much that is lamentable and reprehensible, I have found much that is noble and to be admired; much stern heroic virtue; much savage and horrible crime; of low vulgar vice very little, at least amongst the great body of the Spanish nation, with which my mission lay…” This from the Preface to George Borrow’s idiosyncratic 1842 masterpiece of travel literature, The Bible in Spain from Project Gutenberg. Borrow’s view of Spain was not, of course, always so upbeat.
Traveller 2: I was looking through the books in VIPS a couple of days ago when I saw a copy, on sale for a mere €4, of Textos y con-textos de Clarín – Los artículos de Leopoldo Alas en "El Porvenir" (Madrid, 1882), edited by Roger L. Utt (Istmo, Madrid). Roger, who died in 2001 and who was an expert in the 19th century Spanish novel, was my predecessor as editor of Puerta del Sol. It was strange seeing his name there among all the coffee-table literature: I’d no idea he'd written this. The book contains biographical information about Clarín, but none about Roger.
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