12mo.' How this
little circumstance, discovered by Mr. Charles Welsh when preparing his
Life of John Newbery, is to be brought into agreement with the
time-honoured story, related (with variations) by Boswell and others, to
the effect that Johnson negotiated the sale of the manuscript for
Goldsmith when the latter was arrested for rent by his incensed
landlady--has not yet been satisfactorily suggested. Possibly the
solution is a simple one, referable to some of those intricate
arrangements favoured by 'the Trade' at a time when not one but half a
score publishers' names figured in an imprint. At present, the fact that
Collins bought a third share of the book from the author for twenty
guineas, and the statement that Johnson transferred the entire
manuscript to a bookseller for sixty pounds, seem irreconcilable. That
'The Vicar of Wakefield' was nevertheless written, or was being written,
in 1762, is demonstrable from internal evidence.
About Christmas in the same year Goldsmith moved into lodgings at
Islington, his landlady being one Mrs.
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