THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD

London and New York: Macmillan Co, 1927. 191 x 127 mm. (7 1/2 x 5"). xxxvi, 306 pp.Preface by Austin Dobson.
CHARMING CONTEMPORARY FAWN-COLORED PICTORIAL CRUSHED MOROCCO BY RIVIERE & SON, covers with frame formed by multiple gilt rules with onlaid green dot cornerpieces and gilt festoons at head and tail of frame, central PICTORIAL INLAY IN FOUR COLORS depicting a vicar pontificating (and in front of him as an indication of shadow, thin penwork lines inscribed into the morocco); raised bands, spine gilt in French fillet compartments with central gilt patera, wide gilt-framed turn-ins with ribbon cornerpieces, leather hinges, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. In a linen-covered slipcase. With frontispiece and 181 illustrations in the text by Hugh Thomson. ◆Spine very slightly and uniformly sunned toward a butterscotch color, but A VERY FINE COPY, the text clean, fresh, and bright, and the lustrous, appealing binding with only the most insignificant wear.

This copy of Goldsmith's classic is delightful, enhanced by the appealing illustrations of Thomson and the book's charming pictorial cover. Riviere is one of the foremost names in English binding, partly because the firm did consistently fine work and partly because it was so long in business. Robert Riviere began as a bookseller and binder in Bath in 1829, then set up shop as a binder in London in 1840; in 1881, he took his grandson Percival Calkin into partnership, at which time the firm became known as Riviere & Son, and the bindery continued to do business until 1939.

Written in 1761-62 but not published until four years later, "The Vicar of Wakefield" was said to have been rescued from some of Goldsmith's unpublished manuscripts by Dr. Johnson, who thus saved the penniless author from debtors' prison by selling it to a publisher for £60. Considered to be the masterpiece of the middle-class domestic novel, the "Vicar" has never gone out of style because its whimsically delineated characters have a delightful simplicity that somehow insulates them against ultimate misfortune, and the innocent and virtuous are rewarded, as they should be, in the end..