powerful portrayal of a diversity of people, places and incidents. A contemporary reviewer expected that readers would be "amused by the lively sketches... along with the author's odd adventures, and the queer positions in which he often placed himself". For this reviewer the book is "in the first rank of entertaining and even of informing books", although in Borrow's "off-hand, free-and-easy" encounters with a wide range of colourful characters he seems frequently to be pursuing an object at variance with "one that could be contemplated by a Bible Society's agent". Borrow's account in the book (Chapters 51–57) of his unscheduled expedition to Gibraltar and Tangier makes it "clear that he was pursuing a private agenda, a dream of discovery about Gypsies, Jews, and Moors." For Edward Thomas (1912), Borrow presented himself in a heroic light, without vanity. Borrow's writing style in the book is "effective", conveying "half theatrical and wholly wild exuberance and robustness", even though it "runs at times to rotten Victorianism, both heavy and vague" and shows the influence of Biblical phraseology. Borrow often breaks up his own narrative with "life-like" dialogue that "can hardly be over-praised"; the effect is not marred by the many insertions of untranslated Spanish words and phrases. Thomas concludes that "as always for a good writer, the whole is greater than the mere sum of the parts." Herbert Read, in his book English Prose Style (1928) cites Borrow's The Bible in Spain as an example of "the virtues of a good narrative style". For the historian Raymond Carr (1966), Borrow's "strange masterpiece" is of especial historical value, against the shortage of "orthodox sources" for Spanish history at that period. This is seen, for example, in the "splendid eyewitness account" (on pp. 135–140) of the bravery of the military officer Vicente Genaro de Quesada in the face of a hostile crowd. Influence The success of The Bible in Spain helped to promote public interest in Britain in the work of colporteurs, who distribute religious works, and this activity became a major focus for the Bible Society in the mid-19th century. The description of Gypsy life in the final chapter of Prosper Mérimée's novella Carmen (the source for Bizet's opera) shows many similarities with those in Borrow's The Bible in Spain and The Zincali. Mérimée was familiar with Borrow's writings and commented on them. In the Footsteps of George Borrow by Guy Arnold () is