Goldsmith

This 1878 biography of Oliver Goldsmith chronicles the colourful literary career of the Irish-born poet, dramatist and novelist.

William Black (Author)

9781108034708, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 3 November 2011

174 pages
21.6 x 14 x 1 cm, 0.23 kg

Written by Scottish novelist William Black (1841–98), this biography of the Irish-born poet, dramatist and novelist Oliver Goldsmith (c.1728–74) was published in 1878 as the sixth book in the first series of English Men of Letters. Goldsmith is best known for his novel The Vicar of Wakefield (1766) and the play She Stoops to Conquer (1771), as well as his close association with Samuel Johnson, James Boswell, and William Hogarth. The biography is a colourful one: as Black observes, Goldsmith, who was trained as a physician but whose whole career was in literature, possessed a 'happy knack of enjoying the present hour', and his pursuit of pleasure frequently left him in debt. Black himself was one of the most prolific and popular writers of his day; a collected edition of his works published 1892–4 ran to twenty-six volumes.

1. Introductory
2. School and college
3. Idleness, and foreign travel
4. Early struggles - hack-writing
5. Beginning of authorship - The Bee
6. Personal traits
7. The Citizen of the World - Beau Nash
8. The arrest
9. The Traveller
10. Miscellaneous writing
11. The Vicar of Wakefield
12. The Good-natured Man
13. Goldsmith in society
14. The Deserted Village
15. Occasional writing
16. She Stoops to Conquer
17. Increasing difficulties - the end.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: general [DSB]