In his Welsh classic, Borrow provides an account of his walk from Llangollen to Swansea in 1856, a walk which at the time would have been a pursuit of epic proportions. Borrow’s literary musings, historical anecdotes and experiences along the way, presented in the form of a journal, provide an insight to Welsh life as it was in the middle of the 19th Century.
In a world immersed in the industrial revolution, Borrow was undoubtedly struck by the magnitude and pace of change that was happening around him. But it would not have been evident to him that the world could be anything like it is today. A world without motor cars, no electricity, no telephones, no aeroplanes, no police force anything like we know it today and the wonders of a technological revolution that has turned the world on its head not even a figment of the imagination, that was the world of Borrow.
A Walk in “Wild” Wales with George Borrow compares Borrow’s Wales with Wales today and captures events that have impacted on towns that Borrow passed through and some of the characters they have produced who have helped shape a Welsh culture built on a unique language and a hardiness of spirit descendant from its farming and mining heritage.
