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Book description

>John Sampson was a brilliant philologist who, happening to encounter a gypsy tribe in North Wales, compiled over thirty years a dictionary of the Romani language that remains the standard work. But he also became a Bohemian himself, a bigamist and the father of a child who was brought up secretly and who would in turn become a remarkable scholar. Using intimate letters, bawdy rhymes and wonderful illustrations- including many by Augustus John who was part of the circle - Anthony Sampson brings to life a group of scholars, writers and painters who escaped Victorian convention to pursue an alternative life in the Welsh hills.

The Scholar Gypsy is both a detective story and a moving voyage of discovery. Ranging through finely observed contrasts and connections it illuminates many lesser-known aspects of Victorian and Edwardian Britain and vividly conveys the spell that gypsies cast on the imagination of artists and writers, and the fear that they arouse among the conventional.> >John Sampson was a brilliant philologist who, happening to encounter a gypsy tribe in North Wales, compiled over thirty years a dictionary of the Romani language that remains the standard work. But he also became a Bohemian himself, a bigamist and the father of a child who was brought up secretly and who would in turn become a remarkable scholar. Using intimate letters, bawdy rhymes and wonderful illustrations- including many by Augustus John who was part of the circle - Anthony Sampson brings to life a group of scholars, writers and painters who escaped Victorian convention to pursue an alternative life in the Welsh hills.

The Scholar Gypsy is both a detective story and a moving voyage of discovery. Ranging through finely observed contrasts and connections it illuminates many lesser-known aspects of Victorian and Edwardian Britain and vividly conveys the spell that gypsies cast on the imagination of artists and writers, and the fear that they arouse among the conventional.>