Ready Reference Treatise: The Vicar of Wakefield

The story behind the publication of this novel is also very interesting and it is famous in literary circles. It is assumed that Goldsmith was in debt and there was danger of being imprisoned. He sought the help of Samuel Johnson to find something which could be published from his work. Johnson picked this manuscript from a pile and sold it for sixty pounds. The publisher did not print it for two years, because he found that it was too much similar to the popular horror tales of the day. When it was eventually published it did not find a large number of audiences. However, in the following years five authorized London editions got printed by 1774. Several decades after the death of Goldsmith, the great writers such as Byron, Sir Walter Scott, and Goethe admired his work and “The Vicar of Wakefield” immediately became a sensation.