Author: GOLDSMITH (Oliver):
Title: The Vicar of Wakefield: A Tale. Supposed to be written by Himself. The Second Edition.
Description: London: Printed for F. Newbery..., 1766. 2 volumes. 12mo, 160 x 100 mms., pp. [viii], 214; [vi], 225 [256 blank], recently rebound in quarter calf, raised bands between gilt rules on spine, red morocco labels, vellum tips on corners, ; fore-margins of front free end-paper and title-page of volume one slightly defective and fragile, other leaves with slight loss at edges and corners, original end-papers preserved with the autograph "Elizabeth Gibbs/ Elizabeth Isalbella Rosson" on the recto of the top margin of the front free end-paper in volume and "Elizabeth Gibbs" in volume two. The composition and printing history of the text of The Vicar of Wakefield is expertly told by Arthur Friedman in his Collected Works of Oliver Goldsmith (1966). Friedman states that "The text of the Vicar offers few difficulties. The first edition [1766] contains a fair number of misprints, many of them in the headlines and catchwords; and a few formes underwent correction of obvious errors as they were going through the press. The first is used as copy-text. The second edition was extensively revised, and most of the new readings have been admitted into the edited text." Both the Monthly Review and the Critical Review gave some space to the novel, very briefly in the former, with the rather devastating commenting that it displayed "beauties sufficient to entitle ita to almost the highest applause, and defects enough to put the discerning reader out of all patience with an author of so strangely undewriting himself.--With marks of genius equal, in some respect, to those which distinguish our most celebrated novel-writers, there are in this work, such palpable indications of the want of a thorough acquaintance with mankind, as might go near to prove the Author totally unqualified for success in this species of composition...."

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