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Octavo (8 3/16 x 5 1/2 in; 208 x 140 mm). xv, [1], 306 pp, with thirty-two black and white drawings as headpieces. Beautifully bound ca. 1930 by Rivière & Son, (stamp-signed) in full dark red crushed morocco, spine gilt in compartments. Upper board with wide gilt-tooled frame enclosing a central gilt-decorated oval with an original miniature portrait of Goldsmith in watercolor under glass. Rear board with gilt rolled borders and corner piece. Engraved (unidentified) armorial bookplate pasted onto front doublure. Bookplate of L.B. Rossbach to front free-endpaper verso. Gilt decorated turn-ins. Green moiré silk endleaves. All edges gilt. A lovely example housed in the original faux lizard, leather edged slipcase. One of the most popular books of the 18th century. This novel, both a work of sentimental fiction and a satire on the genre itself, follows the trials and eventual triumph of the Primrose family, led by the Rev d Dr. Charles Primrose, the vicar. Goldsmith was a noted Irish wit, novelist, playwright, poet, and a member of Samuel Johnson s famed literary club, who Johnson praised as: "In genius, vivid, versatile, sublime. In style, clear, elevated, elegant." Contemporaries celebrated Goldsmith s ability to craft deceptively complex characters, most notably in the case of Charles Primrose, the vicar from The Vicar of Wakefield. The legend of the book s publication is that Goldsmith was about to be arrested by his landlady for debt, when Johnson was able to sell the manuscript of the novel to a publisher for sixty pounds, saving his friend in the nick of time. "I brought Goldsmith the money, and he discharged his rent, not without rating his landlady in a high tone for having used him so ill." Kept busy by writing quickly and voluminously for Grub Street, the center of London s disreputable part of the literary world, Goldsmith nevertheless also found time to hone novels such as The Vicar of Wakefield, poems such as The Deserted Village, and plays such as She Stoops to Conquer. Goldsmith s facility among different genres brought him fame and friendship with many great eighteenth-century British authors. "The Riviere Bindery was one of the most notable and prolific shops in London's West End from about 1840 through 1939" (Princeton). Bath-based Bayntun Bindery acquired the firm in 1939, transforming into the "Bayntun-Riviere bindery," which is still in existence and family owned. Although named after the English miniaturist Richard Cosway (1742-1821), the desirable "Cosway Binding" with its jewel-like portrait miniature set into a fine binding was first developed at the turn of the century by J.H. Stonehouse, director of London s Henry Sotheran Booksellers. Their miniatures were painstakingly crafted by the talented painter Miss C. B. Currie (1849-1940). As the style grew in popularity, other publishing houses quickly began to reproduce this technique each developing their own desirable take on the aesthetic referred to as "Cosway style.".
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