Two undiscovered books by George Borrow

I dreamed that a great prize had been offered in the Westminster Gazette for an essay competition. The subject of the essay was to be "The Books found in a Guest-chamber on a Week-end Visit." I was on my way to a country house, and I wondered what books I should actually find in the bedroom that I should occupy in the house to which I was going. . . . The big country house that I came to was like O—— and I was taken upstairs on my arrival to a room which I recognised as one in which I had several times slept on visits there. With my thoughts running on the essay I went quickly to the bookshelf and looked eagerly at its contents. There was a little row of books. Those that I glanced at first were familiar to me, books that I had read, novels I think, but I did not look at them much, for they were of no use for my special purpose, for the essay which was absorbing my thoughts. I do not even remember what they were; but I found towards the end of the shelf a single volume entitled "Candide." Opening it, I found a short preface which stated that this was a quite newly discovered volume, hitherto unpublished, and of remarkable interest; a continuation, in fact, of "Candide’s" story. I wondered if this might not serve my turn and provide stuff for the essay. I thought that it might, and began to turn over its pages, when my eye fell on the last two volumes standing in the little row. They were dark-blue books, lettered in gold, and their title ran "Mr. Petulengro, Vol. I, and Mr. Petulengro, Vol. II." "Oh, wonderful and delightful discovery!" I thought; "imagine finding two perfectly new books by Borrow! A new 'Lavengro' and an unread and hitherto unheard-of 'Romany Rye'! How unexpected and how enchanting ! Could it be a mistake?" — and I eagerly opened the two blue volumes. No, the promise held good. Here on the first pages that I looked at were the familiar names, Jasper Petulengro, Mrs. Petulengro, Ursula. . . . Chapter headings, too, there were that seemed familiar, but that yet were all new! . . . The opening of my essay began to frame itself in my mind. The sentences with which it should begin, and in which I should tell of my discovery to the world, came quite readily, and I repeated them over to myself, though the importance of the fifty-guinea prize faded quite away in comparison with the excitement of the discovery that I had made. But then — alas! the dark-blue volumes themselves began to fade. I tried hard to keep them, but in vain; and I woke up to find that my favourite row of "bedside books" near at hand contained indeed the familiar slim green volumes which I knew so nearly by heart, but that "Mr. Petulengro, Vol. I, and Mr. Petulengro, Vol. II," had disappeared with my dream.

June, 1913