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Oliver Goldsmith (1730–1774)

Author of The Vicar of Wakefield

271+ Works 6,767 Members 97 Reviews 3 Favorited
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About the Author

As Samuel Johnson said in his famous epitaph on his Irish-born and educated friend, Goldsmith ornamented whatever he touched with his pen. A professional writer who died in his prime, Goldsmith wrote the best comedy of his day, She Stoops to Conquer (1773). Amongst a plethora of other fine works, show more he also wrote The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), which, despite major plot inconsistencies and the intrusion of poems, essays, tales, and lectures apparently foreign to its central concerns, remains one of the most engaging fictional works in English. One reason for its appeal is the character of the narrator, Dr. Primrose, who is at once a slightly absurd pedant, an impatient traditional father of teenagers, a Job-like figure heroically facing life's blows, and an alertly curious, helpful, loving person. Another reason is Goldsmith's own mixture of delight and amused condescension (analogous to, though not identical with, Laurence Sterne's in Tristram Shandy and Johnson's in Rasselas, both contemporaneous) as he looks at the vicar and his domestic group, fit representatives of a ludicrous but workable world. Never married and always facing financial problems, he died in London and was buried in Temple Churchyard. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: Photo © ÖNB/Wien

Works by Oliver Goldsmith

The Vicar of Wakefield (1766) — Author — 2,805 copies
She Stoops to Conquer (1771) 1,522 copies
Treasury of Aesop's Fables (1973) 174 copies
The Deserted Village (1770) 125 copies
The Citizen of the World (1969) 76 copies
Oliver Goldsmith (1777) 23 copies
Poems, plays and essays (1900) 22 copies
The Roman History (1805) 19 copies
The Mad Dog (1766) 18 copies
The Traveller: A Poem (1892) 18 copies
Grecian History (2009) 11 copies
History of Rome (1817) 10 copies
Essays (1928) 9 copies
Beau Nash 9 copies
Selected essays (1912) 6 copies
Goldsmith's Poems (1884) 5 copies
Goldsmith: Selected Works (1967) 5 copies
New essays (1969) 3 copies
Selected works 3 copies
Goldsmith's Comedies — Author — 2 copies
Essays on Goldsmith (1935) 1 copy
She Stoops To Conquer (1932) 1 copy
The Bee 1 copy

Associated Works

The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms (2000) — Contributor — 1,254 copies
English Poetry, Volume II: From Collins to Fitzgerald (1910) — Contributor — 491 copies
75 Short Masterpieces: Stories from the World's Literature (1961) — Contributor — 296 copies
A Book of English Essays (1942) — Contributor — 242 copies
The Penguin Book of Irish Verse (1981) — Contributor — 193 copies
Eighteenth-Century English Literature (1969) — Author — 186 copies
The Penguin Book of Irish Fiction (1999) — Contributor — 149 copies
The Standard Book of British and American Verse (1932) — Contributor — 114 copies
British Dramatists from Dryden to Sheridan (1939) — Contributor, some editions — 91 copies
The Everyman Anthology of Poetry for Children (1994) — Contributor — 72 copies
The Bedside Book of Famous British Stories (1940) — Contributor — 66 copies
Ride a-Cock-Horse and Other Rhymes and Stories (8-in-1) (1995) — some editions — 44 copies
Elegy written in a country churchyard and other poems (2009) — Contributor — 42 copies
Charlotte Temple [Norton Critical Edition] (2010) — Contributor — 42 copies
The Genius of the Later English Theater (1962) — Contributor — 36 copies
Six Eighteenth-Century Plays (1963) — Contributor — 36 copies
100 Story Poems (1951) — Contributor — 20 copies
Great English Short Stories (1930) — Contributor — 20 copies
Masters of British Literature, Volume A (2007) — Contributor — 20 copies
AQA Anthology (2002) — Author, some editions — 19 copies
Ellery Queen's Poetic Justice (1967) — Contributor, some editions — 18 copies
Law in Action: An Anthology of the Law in Literature (1947) — Contributor — 13 copies
Graphic Classics: Canine/Feline Classics (2014) — Contributor — 12 copies
Englische Essays aus drei Jahrhunderten (1980) — Contributor — 10 copies
The Works of Voltaire, Volume I. Introduction. Candide. (2012) — Contributor — 7 copies
Famous Stories of Five Centuries (1934) — Contributor — 4 copies
Selected Stories of Great Authors — Contributor — 3 copies
Tales of Two Countries (1955) — Contributor — 2 copies

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Wildly popular satirical novel of the Victorian era. Probably best left to students/devotees of the literature of the era, because who else would really care about a satire of the pop novel of the time? Yet it can still be read with some enjoyment today, with similarities to the Book of Job and to Voltaire's Candide noted, and a sense of why this was one of Dickens's favorite novels.

The first half seems considerably stronger than the second; it possesses a light tone and some quite comic scenes poking fun at the characters - one involving a commissioned painting of the "humble" family is pure gold. The second half however swings wildly about, with long harangues on the political merits of monarchy and the problem of prison reform seeming like they were shoved in from elsewhere to bulk up the book, before the soap opera-ish grand finale in a prison cell, where a disguise is removed, one thought dead is returned, a love thought lost is restored, a villain receives his comeuppance, yada yada yada.

… (more)
 
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lelandleslie | 8 other reviews | Feb 24, 2024 |
Three and a half stars. The second half was better than the first -- after the first half, the influence on Little Women became quite clear to me.
What I like about this book is that it invites the reader to reflect on the possibility of happiness in extremely difficult circumstances, just like War and Peace does.
 
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jd7h | 8 other reviews | Feb 18, 2024 |
4.5*
2020 reread - just what I needed today!
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2016 reread:
I still think that this play needs to be seen to fully appreciate it but I liked this audiobook recording of a live performance. It was easier to listen to this time (I have had more practice!) and thus I found it even funnier than when I heard it a few years ago.
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May 2014 review
4.5 stars. This full cast audiobook was a fun way to revisit one of my favorite Restoration comedies. However, I did find that some of the humor was a bit harder to visualize listening rather than reading.… (more)
 
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leslie.98 | 20 other reviews | Jun 27, 2023 |
 
Flagged
rbee | Nov 9, 2022 |

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Associated Authors

Richard Brinsley Sheridan Contributor, Author
Joseph Addison Contributor
William Congreve Contributor
Randolph Caldecott Illustrator
Joseph Mackenzie Contributor
Mm Taylor Illustrator
Brooks Atkinson Introduction
Victor Hugo Contributor
Charles Sedley Contributor
Thomas Rowlandson Illustrator
J.M. Dent Editor
Louis Kronenberger Introduction
J. F MacDonald Introduction
poirsonva Illustrator
Ilse Buchholz Translator
Walter Scoot Introduction
Andreas Brylka Illustrator
Ernest Brennecke Introduction
wetherbeemargaret Illustrator
Earle Toppings Introduction
William Mulready Illustrator
Petra Steinmeyer Illustrator
Tony Johannot Illustrator
absalonjohn Illustrator
Flo Gibson Narrator
jamesonmargaret Illustrator
Patrick Tull Narrator
cliftonmartin Narrator
George M. Richards Illustrator
Daniel Maclise Illustrator
Adolphe Lalauze Illustrator
Virginia Woolf Afterword
Padraic Colum Introduction
J. H. Plumb Afterword
Arthur Rackham Illustrator
David Wells Afterword
Edward Ardizzone Cover designer
Stephen Coote Introduction
George Saintsbury Introduction
Hugh Thomson Illustrator
Tuomas Anhava Translator
Daniel Andreae Afterword
John Austen Illustrator
Henry W. Boynton Introduction
Edmund J. Sullivan Illustrator
H. A. Davidson Introduction
C.E. Brock Illustrator
Robert Harding Introduction
David Thorn Narrator
Timothy West Narrator
Erwin Wolff Afterword
Joseph Grego Introduction
Rolf Müller Anmerkungen
Conny Åsberg Illustrator
T. M. Cleland Illustrator
Robert Herring Introduction
Trevor R. Griffiths Introduction
Peter S. Carter Illustrator
Birket Foster Illustrator
David Masson Introduction
John Absolon Illustrator
James Godwin Illustrator
Chris Hammond Illustrator

Statistics

Works
271
Also by
40
Members
6,767
Popularity
#3,614
Rating
½ 3.6
Reviews
97
ISBNs
474
Languages
10
Favorited
3

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