Dr. Samuel Johnson, one of Goldsmith's closest friends, told how The Vicar of Wakefield came to be sold for publication:[1]
I received one morning a message from poor Goldsmith that he was in great distress, and, as it was not in his power to come to me, begging that I would come to him as soon as possible. I sent him a guinea, and promised to come to him directly. I accordingly went as soon as I was dressed, and found that his landlady had arrested him for his rent, at which he was in a violent passion: I perceived that he had already changed my guinea, and had a bottle of Madeira and a glass before him. I put the cork into the bottle, desired he would be calm, and began to talk to him of the means by which he might be extricated. He then told me he had a novel ready for the press, which he produced to me. I looked into it and saw its merit; told the landlady I should soon return; and, having gone to a bookseller, sold it for sixty pounds. 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.
The novel was The Vicar of Wakefield, and Johnson had sold it to Francis Newbery, a nephew of John. Newbery "kept it by him for nearly two years unpublished".[1]
The 1929 edition was illustrated by Arthur Rackham (1867–1939).
