The Vicar of Wakefield-Background Information and Resources

[Frances, Moderator]

Please feel free to post any information about the book, the author, or the era in this section.

[Frances, Moderator]

Oliver Goldsmith, 1728-1774, was the son of an Irish vicar from County Roscommon, Ireland. He was admitted to Trinity College, Dublin as a Sizar, or undergraduate on a scholarship (aka a student-servant), and graduated in 1750, following a lacklustre academic performance. He was turned down by the Church of Ireland on applying to become an ordinand, then went off to study medicine in Edinburgh and Leyden, travelled extensively through Europe, and eventually returned to London to take up writing, working as a hack writer on Grub Street, but also as a translator, an essayist, a playwright, and a poet. The Vicar of Wakefield was his only novel and is considered by many to be his finest work.

Goldsmith was a friend of Samuel Johnson and other literary lights in London and became a founder member of "The Club". He was known for many years to have lived a rather dissolute life, portrayed in Boswell's Life of Johnson as impetuous, insecure, and often childishly gauche and foolish. As Johnson said No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he had. He also asked Let not his frailties be remembered; he was a very great man.

Goldsmith died in 1774, likely of a kidney infection, and is buried in Temple Church, London. His epitaph, written by Samuel Johnson, reads (translated from the original latin):

Oliver Goldsmith: A Poet, Naturalist, and Historian, who left scarcely any style of writing untouched, and touched nothing that he did not adorn. Of all the passions, whether smiles were to move or tears, a powerful yet gentle master. In genius, vivid, versatile, sublime. In style, clear, elevated, elegant.

(Information from Wikipedia and Stephen Coote's Introduction to the 1986 Penguin Edition.)

[Frances, Moderator]

The Vicar of Wakefield: A Tale, Supposed to Be Written by Himself is a 1766 novel by Anglo-Irish writer Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774). It was written from 1761 to 1762 and published in 1766. It was one of the most popular and widely read 18th-century novels among the British citizenry, and remains a classic of English literature.[1] The work finds mention in some of the best-known novels of the 19th century, such as A Tale of Two Cities and Frankenstein.[2] It also saw over 200 editions being produced during the same period, and was widely praised as a staple of English reading novels.[3]

(from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vic... )