Collation: Four volumes.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH
(1728—1774)
53. The | Vicar | Of | Wakefield: | A Tale. | Suppoſed to be written by Himself. | Sperate miſeri, cavete fœlices. | Vol. I. Salisbury: | Printed by B. Collins, | For F. Newbery, in Pater-Noſter-Row, London. | MDCCLXVI.
Boswell, Mrs. Piozzi, Sir John Hawkins and others have given slightly different versions of the well-known story of the sale of the manuscript of the Vicar; but aside from throwing light on the character of Goldsmith, none of them have helped us to a definite understanding of the transaction. The earliest account was written by Mrs. Piozzi in 1786, under the title of Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D., during the last Twenty Years of his Life. At pp. 119-120 she says:
"I have forgotten the year, but it could scarcely I think be later than 1765 or 1766, that he [Johnson] was called abruptly from our house after dinner, and returning in about three hours, ſaid, he had been with an enraged author, whose landlady pressed him for payment within doors, while the bailiffs beset him without; that he was drinking himself drunk with Madeira to drown care, and fretting over a novel which when finished was to be his whole fortune; but he could not get it done for distraction, nor could he step out of doors to offer it to sale. Mr. Johnson therefore set away the bottle, and went to the bookseller, recommending the performance, and desiring some immediate relief, which when he brought back to the writer, he called the woman of the house directly to partake of punch, and pass the time in merriment."
Boswell adds, in his account, that Johnson sold the novel for £60. There seems to be no evidence to prove this, nor yet to show who bought it. It has generally been supposed that the publisher, "F. Newbery," or his uncle, John Newbery, with whom he was inseparably connected, was the purchaser, until Mr. Charles Welsh made the discovery which he relates in his A Bookseller of the Last Century. He says:
"In a book marked 'Account of copies, their cost and value, 1764,' I find the following entry:—"'Vicar of Wakefield,' 2 vols. 12mo., ⅓ rd. B. Collins, Salisbury, bought of Dr. Goldsmith, the author, October 28, 1762, £21.""
From this entry of Collins, the Salisbury printer, we may conclude that the amount Johnson is said to have received for the distressed author (from Newbery, perhaps) was an advance on the unfinished story; and that Collins bought his third interest some time afterward. In 1785, when Collins sold out his interest, Mr. Strahan owned one third, and Carnan and Newbery the other third.