John Bunyan and the Gipsies — Text and Context

A Polemic Against Prevailing Views

Simson’s preface frames the entire work as a rebuttal. He notes that in his earlier Scottish Churches and the Gipsies, he found "the way barred in every direction" when he tried to discuss Romani survival. Here, he singles out Charles Godfrey Leland’s 1882 book The Gipsies as the latest example of a flawed approach. Simson charges that Leland leaves the central question—what becomes of the Gypsies?—"just where he found it," and even confesses it has "puzzled and muddled" him. The language is sharp: Simson accuses literary journals of being unable to handle "a very special subject" unless they find a writer who can do it for them. This is not a dispassionate study but a pointed intervention in an ongoing debate.

Numbers, Hiding, and the Bunyan Thesis

Simson makes bold demographic claims. He asserts that there are at least 250,000 Romanies in the British Isles, possibly double that, and 4,000,000 in Europe and America combined. These figures are presented without citation, reflecting the author’s reliance on personal conviction rather than systematic census data. The mechanism of survival, he argues, is concealment: "as the Gipsy race leaves the tent, and rises to civilization, it hides its nationality from the rest of the world, so great is the prejudice against the name of Gipsy." This idea of hidden identity is the linchpin for his claim about John Bunyan. Simson does not quote Bunyan directly in the excerpts, but he insists that Bunyan’s Gypsy heritage will be "conclusively shown." The reader is left to wonder what evidence follows.

The Rhetoric of a Crusader

Simson’s prose is that of a campaigner, not a neutral scholar. He describes the Romani story as a "wonderful story" that, when properly told, constitutes "a work of interest to many classes of readers." He aims to "raise the name of Gipsy out of the dust." The book is presented as having a moral and religious dimension: it bears on "the conversion of the Jews, the advancement of Christianity generally, and the development of historical and moral science." This sweeping ambition is matched by a combative stance. Simson admits that getting a London journal to publish his article on Leland was "a very difficult and delicate matter," and he proposed that the journal could publish it "without any responsibility on the part of the journal or editor." The tone is that of a man who sees himself as a lone voice against entrenched error.

What the Excerpts Leave Unsaid

The provided excerpts are heavily weighted toward the preface and advertisements, which are essentially paratextual. The body of the work—where Simson presumably lays out his evidence for Bunyan’s Romani ancestry—is not included. This means the reader cannot assess the strength of his central argument. The excerpts do reveal the author’s method: he relies on assertion, on challenging the silence of others, and on a theory of hidden identity that is difficult to falsify. Simson’s writing is repetitive, returning several times to the idea that Romanies "cease to be Gipsies" only by keeping silent about their heritage. The book appears to be as much a manifesto as a historical study, and its value may lie more in documenting a 19th-century polemic than in proving its thesis.

Readers approaching John Bunyan and the Gipsies should be prepared for a work that is part argument, part crusade. Simson’s evidence for Bunyan’s Romani identity is not visible in these excerpts, and the book’s claims about hidden populations rest on the author’s authority rather than verifiable data. The text is best read as a specimen of 19th-century controversial writing, revealing how one advocate tried to reshape public understanding of Romani history. Those interested in the reception of Bunyan or the history of Romani studies will find it a curious, if frustrating, document.

There is something strange and tender about old books that chase a vanished people through language, as Simson does with Bunyan’s possible Romani roots. That longing for a hidden, enduring presence reminds me of another quiet relic I keep, A history of postal agitation from fifty years ago till the present day — Reading Companion, its pages full of earnest, forgotten voices. Both feel like handwriting on a wall no one walks past anymore.