Gypsies and the British Imagination, 1807–1930 (review)

Two interpretations of the origins of Romanies in Britain have dominated scholarship. According to one, they first reached British soil in the early sixteenth century, having come initially from India. The alternative view lays more stress upon intermarriage with the wider British population, and suggests that this ethnic minority also includes "drop-outs" from mainstream society. These two interpretations, however, are not mutually exclusive. What appears indisputable in both is the relationship between the hostility that this group has experienced for the past five centuries and their location. From their first arrival, Romanies have faced constant marginalization, which has always manifested itself in draconian legislation controlling their movement.

Historians, sociologists, and anthropologists have played a major role in reconstructing the history of Romanies in Britain. While scholars such as Judith Okely have provided information about their everyday lives, David Mayall and Thomas Acton in particular have illustrated the hostility that this group has experienced over many years. In Gypsies and the British Imagination, 1807–1930, Deborah Esptein Nord traces a different route through this subject by examining how Romanies have been romanticised in literary and ethnographic representations. Beginning in 1807 and ending in 1930, Nord's scope varies between canonical authors (her study, for example, bookended by Walter Scott and D. H. Lawrence) and lesser-known figures and institutions, such as George Borrow and the Gypsy Lore Society. (I should note that while Gypsy has become an increasingly problematic term, the period about which Nord writes warrants its use, and I will follow her lead here.)

In the introduction Nord briefly examines many of the British stereotypes of Romanies. Prominent among these was the fear of Gypsies as kidnappers and kidnapped. The perceived "gender heterodoxy" of the Gypsies was also threatening: women were typically depicted as strong and men as effeminate—although Nord also notes that some nineteenth-century writing on Gypsy women stressed their conventional beauty. The introduction also includes sections on origins, the "most pervasive theme in thinking about Gypsies throughout the nineteenth century," (10) and "dissociation," a concept that Nord uses to describe the "Gypsy way of life," rather than the group itself.

The chapters that follow focus upon individual authors to bring out particular themes. For instance in chapter 1, "A Mingled Race: Walter Scott's Gypsies," Nord uncovers in Scott's Guy Mannering (1815), an appreciation of the complexity of Gypsy identity. The second chapter, "Vagrant and Poet: The Gypsy and the 'Strange Disease of Modern Life,'" tackles a variety of authors including William Wordsworth and Matthew Arnold. There then follows an analysis of Borrow, who played a leading role in perpetuating positive Gypsy stereotypes in works of both fact and fiction. Chapter 4, "'Marks of Race'," examines a number of George Eliot's works, especially The Spanish Gypsy (1868), and offers comparisons between Jewish and Gypsy characters in her writing.

One of the most interesting chapters of the book is on the Gypsy Lore Society, which brings to a climax some of Nord's themes. Founded in 1888, this group aimed for a more scientific approach than literary texts offered, although, as Nord notes, their "scholarship occupied a transitional space between dilettantism and academic professionalism" (131). She provides wonderful profiles about some of the early stars and founders of the Gypsy Lore Society. Their research methodology included spending much time amongst the group they studied, which, in some cases, meant developing a scientific knowledge of the languages used. One of the most endearing portraits painted by Nord is that of Dora Yates who virtually gave her life to the study of the Romanies.

Nord has written a sophisticated, subtle, and highly erudite analysis of British representations of the Gypsies between 1807 and 1930. Literary scholars will find her work most useful, while historians may appreciate this volume less. The most interesting chapter for them is likely to be that on the Gypsy Lore Society. The problem with the book essentially lies in the...