Lavengro

Part memoir, part invention, and impossible to file under either, this book follows a restless young Englishman with a gift for languages as he drifts through the byways of early nineteenth-century Britain. He falls in with tinkers, prizefighters, and Romani travellers, above all his friend Jasper Petulengro, and the title itself is the Romani word for word-master. Borrow strings together roadside encounters, philological curiosity, and long stretches of open-air talk into something closer to a wandering life than a plotted story. Famous set pieces include the fight on the heath and the strange interlude in the dingle with Isopel Berners. Its unclassifiable freedom has kept readers arguing and delighting for generations. Available here as a free PDF and EPUB edition.