Maggs Bros.

Rare. ESTC records a handful of copies in Continental European libraries and the British Library; Huntington, California - Santa Barbara, Johns Hopkins, Harvard, North Carolina and New York Academy of Medicine (this seems to be a mistake) only in the USA. Rare Book Hub records a rather damaged copy in a modern binding over a decade ago at Bloomsbury Book Auctions but before that only a copy at Bangs described as “extremely rare” in 1898.

The first edition of Goldsmith’s important novel published on the Continent, the first of many editions of this perennially popular work which was also translated into many other languages. This edition was intended to be studied by those the learning English and is printed with accents on the words to aid pronunciation.

“Two extremely interesting editions in English were published on the continent of Europe during the last quarter of the eighteenth century; one in Berlin and the other in Vienna…**I have never seen the first editions…”** (Temple Scott, Oliver Goldsmith bibliographically and biographically considered (1928) p. 183).

Provenance: Friedrich Nicolai (1733–1811); writer, bookseller and publisher. Nicolai’s handsome and large engraved “et amicorum” bookplate on the front pastedown. Nicolai was one of Berlin’s leading publishers at the end of the 18th-century and was responsible for making English literature available to German readers and reviewed new English book in his journal Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek (1765–1806). Nicolai’s novel Sebaldus Nothanker (1773–1776) is often thought to be a imitation of Goldsmith’s Vicar of Wakefield.