Historical Dictionary of the Gypsies (Romanies)

Never did I expect to find President Clinton in a dictionary of gypsies, nor pop idol David Essex or film star Yul Brynner! But such are the surprises of scholarship and book reviewing. Bill Clinton’s great‐great‐great‐great‐uncle was Charles Blyth, who was crowned “Charles I of the Gypsies” at Kirk Yetholm, in 1847. Charles’s brother Andrew settled in the American south and is William Jefferson Clinton’s ancestor (Bill’s name was changed from Blyth). David Essex is patron of the Gypsy Council for Education, Culture, Welfare and Civil Rights, and he has recorded the poems of Charles Smith, a contemporary English and...