First edition, a textual variant unrecorded by Temple Scott, conforming to his variant A, but with the correct catchword on p.39 of vol. II. Two volumes. 12mo. Original quarter brown calf over marbled paper boards, volume numbers in gilt to the spine. Uncut and unpressed. An exceptional copy in unsophisticated, original condition. Some wear to the spine ends and corners and general surface wear to the boards with a little loss of paper to volume II. Wanting the front free endpaper and final blank to vol. I. Internally, generally fresh with marginal chips to the corners of C2, E2, F3 and G1 of vol I, none of them affecting the text, and the occasional stain to vol II.

The exceptional Stockhausen copy of Goldsmith's masterpiece and one of the most popular and widely read novels of the eighteenth century, at its height on a par with Gulliver's Travels. Written in 1761-2, Goldsmith had famously sold it to Francis Newbury, with the help of his friend Samuel Johnson, a couple of years later, who in turn "kept it by him for nearly two years unpublished" (Irving Washington).
Although its success was not immediate, its popularity grew to the extent that by 1886 there had been some 96 editions printed and numerous translations. Structured and written in the manner of the sentimental novel, a genre popular at the time for seeking to capture the emotion of the characters and induce the same in their readers, it is also seen as an early attempt at a satire on the sentimental novel in the scarcely credulous way Goldsmith allows his unworldly Vicar to be fleeced and befall misfortunes. It is possible that Jane Austen had this gentle poking of fun in mind when taking similarly ironic approach in Sense and Sensibility. We know that Austen had read The Vicar of Wakefield because she mentions it in Emma. It is evidence of how widespread its influence was throughout the nineteenth century, that the novel is also mentioned in the text of Frankenstein, Middlemarch, Villette and The Professor, David Copperfield and The Tale of Two Cities and Little Women.

PROVENANCE: William E. Stockhausen (his sale, Sotheby Parke Bernet, November 1974);

Rothschild 1028

Stock ID: 45448