In Regency England, a woman risks scandal, disgrace, even her own life for a forbidden passion in this “sure-to-please saga” (Kirkus Reviews). From the moment the handsome, raffish stranger with the gold earring throws her a kiss, Jessica Frenshaw is enchanted. Rumored to be a half-Spanish wanderer who can predict the future, Romany Jake is unjustly put on trial for murder. After the verdict banishes him from England, Jessica despairs of ever seeing him again. But one fateful day, Jake Cadorson returns to reclaim what he has lost—including the woman who saved him from the gallows. From the ballrooms and lavish estates of Regency England through the bitter bloodshed of the Napoleonic Wars, Return of the Gypsy weaves a spellbinding tale of blackmail, murder, and illicit passion as a woman risks everything for the man she loves—a man who isn’t what he seems.

HIS IS A STUDY OF HOW some of the most marginal and exploited people that exist can imagine themselves to be princes of the world.During the past two hundred years the Gypsies of Eastern Europe have faced near enslavement by land owners, the physical and moral onslaught of the Nazi holocaust, the fundamental challenge to their central values from the Communist state, and the violent discrimination and dislocation caused by the return to capitalism. One would have thought that the challenge would be too great, that they would have suffered cultural

This book critically examines the nature and source of Gypsy stereotypes.

This is an analysis of 166 original and previously unpublished documents dating from the very first mention of a Gypsy in 1401 up to the year 1 765. These documents range from royal decrees thru lawsuits to entries in municipal records. Some were written in Polish but many are in Latin, German or Ruthenian. They tell the story of not only the Gypsies living in Poland, but also of those who now live in Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia and Ukraine. Though Poland has not traditionally had a large Roma population, the author leads the reader through an eventful history of a people living on the margins of contemporary Europe. The historic documents illustrate a marked contrast to present stereotypes and popular media images and shows how the position of Roma/Gypsies shifted gradually from respected, wealthy and partly settled citizens of the early modern times, towards criminalized vagrants of the 18 th century. This is a careful interpretation and re-interpretation of documents pertaining to the Roma's past that will provide an enlightening historical perspective towards the re-evaluation and self-definition of the Romani people in contemporary Europe.

In the England of 1218, King John is dead and his young son is on the throne, guided by the aging William, Marshall of England. All of the vast domains of Johns father on the Continent have been lost and the rebellious barons are held to a fragile truce. It is very much a mans world. When Elise of Debouchet defi es the step-uncle who has laid claim to her estates and refuses to marry any of the men he chooses, he gives her an ultimatum. You do not need your eyes to speak the vows or get an heir. You will do as I say or I will have your eyes put out. Elise says she would rather marry any man than the one before her. Her uncle counters with, The next man through the gate will be your husband, be he prince or serf. Elise agrees because she doesnt want to be blinded. Her uncle has taken her mother and younger sister hostage and she needs time to fi nd some clue as to where he holds them. When Louis of Kirkfi eld, a Romani merchant, walks over the bridge and through the gate of the closest castle, his only thought is to buy a horse to replace his lame packhorse. He is overwhelmed by four brawny men and badly beaten, then forced to say vows before a priest. He and his new bride are thrown into a tower room. The door is barred against escape. Louis does escape and comes back with an army. But Elises mother and sister cannot be located and they follow the trail to France and her grandmother. The more they know, the more they fi nd out, the bigger the scheme becomes and they are now searching for a double agent, a money lender, a lawyer and an assassin. The wealthy young bride and her gypsy must follow the trails and learn to work together to make their marriage work and therein lies the tale.

"'The Gypsy Life of Betsy Wood' gives a faithful and beautiful picture of Welsh Gypsy life which will appeal to the Gypsy-lore enthusiast, as a real contribution to knowledge in a little explored field, and to the general reader for its fine human story. Betsy Wood, who herself told the authoress of the incidents here described, came of an aristocratic Gypsy clan speaking that pure dialect of Romani which the Gypsies of the principality have retained along with those of Greece and Turkey." --Dust jacket.

Gypsies have lived in England since the early sixteenth century, yet considerable confusion and disagreement remain over the precise identity of the group. The question 'Who are the Gypsies?' is still asked and the debates about the positioning and permanence of the boundary between Gypsy and non-Gypsy are contested as fiercely today as at any time before. This study locates these debates in their historical perspective, tracing the origins and reproduction of the various ways of defining and representing the Gypsy from the early sixteenth century to the present day. Starting with a consideration of the early modern description of Gypsies as Egyptians, land pirates and vagabonds, the volume goes on to examine the racial classification of the nineteenth century and the emergence of the ethnic Gypsy in the twentieth century. The book closes with an exploration of the long-lasting image of the group as vagrant and parasitic nuisances which spans the whole period from 1500 to 2000.