1903 · Chiswick
by (CARADOC PRESS). GOLDSMITH, OLIVER
Chiswick: The Caradoc Press, 1903. No. 215 OF 360 COPIES on paper (and 14 copies on vellum). 220 x 153 mm. (8 3/4 x 6"). 4 p.l. (first blank), 107, [4], 112-211, [1] pp.
Publisher's limp vellum, flat spine with black lettering. Decorative woodcut borders on three pages, fine woodcut capitals in the strapwork style of 15th c. Italian initials, etched frontispiece portrait of Goldsmith by Harry George Webb, and signed by him in pencil. Printed in red and black. Franklin, p. 266; Tomkinson, p. 26. Short tear at bottom of front and rear pastedowns, isolated faint foxing, but an excellent copy, the binding quite clean and the contents very fresh.
This attractive ninth publication of the Caradoc Press is the enduringly popular "Vicar of Wakefield." Written in 1761-62 but not published until four years later, "Vicar" was said to have been rescued from some of Goldsmith's unpublished manuscripts by Dr.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. The Caradoc Press derives its name from a hill in Shropshire, near the birthplace of Hesba Dora Webb, who founded the press with her husband H. George Webb in 1899. The Webbs were responsible from the outset for every facet of Caradoc book production, issuing 20 volumes in the course of a decade featuring, as here, a typeface based on 15th century printer Nicolaus Jenson's celebrated roman founts.. (Inventory #: ST20526)
Publisher's limp vellum, flat spine with black lettering. Decorative woodcut borders on three pages, fine woodcut capitals in the strapwork style of 15th c. Italian initials, etched frontispiece portrait of Goldsmith by Harry George Webb, and signed by him in pencil. Printed in red and black. Franklin, p. 266; Tomkinson, p. 26. Short tear at bottom of front and rear pastedowns, isolated faint foxing, but an excellent copy, the binding quite clean and the contents very fresh.
This attractive ninth publication of the Caradoc Press is the enduringly popular "Vicar of Wakefield." Written in 1761-62 but not published until four years later, "Vicar" 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. The Caradoc Press derives its name from a hill in Shropshire, near the birthplace of Hesba Dora Webb, who founded the press with her husband H. George Webb in 1899. The Webbs were responsible from the outset for every facet of Caradoc book production, issuing 20 volumes in the course of a decade featuring, as here, a typeface based on 15th century printer Nicolaus Jenson's celebrated roman founts.. (Inventory #: ST20526)
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