Oliver Goldsmith (November 10, 1728 - April 4, 1774) was an Irish writer and physician known for his novel The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), his pastoral poem The Deserted Village (1770) (written in memory of his brother), and his plays The Good-natur'd Man (1768) and She Stoops to Conquer (1773).

Oliver Goldsmith

He was the son of an Anglican cleric and earned his Bachelor of Arts in 1749 at Trinity College, Dublin, studying theology and law but never getting as far as ordination. He later studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and the University of Leiden, then toured Europe, living on his wits. On his return, he settled in London, where he worked as an apothecary's assistant. Perennially in debt, Goldsmith had a massive output as a hack writer for the publishers of London, but his few painstaking works earned him the company of Samuel Johnson, along with whom he was a founder member of "The Club".

He was buried in Westminster Abbey and his epitaph here was written by Samuel Johnson

Other Works

• The Citizen of the World (1762)
• The Traveller (1764)

See Auburn, for the influence of The Deserted Village.

External links

Text of The Deserted Village: http://www.english.upenn.edu/~mgamer/Etexts/goldsmith

• Full text of Oliver Goldsmith: A Biography (http://www.gutenberg.net/etext/7993) by Washington Irving from Project Gutenberg

References

• The Vicar of Wakefield, ISBN 0192839403
• She Stoops to Conquer, ISBN 0486268675
• Life of Oliver Goldsmith, by Washington Irving, ISBN 1589632362
• The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith by Austin Dobson (Editor), ISBN 158827277X
• Oliver Goldsmith (Everyman's Poetry Series) edited by Gordon Campbell, ISBN 0460878271

External Links

• The Vicar of Wakefield online at Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/2667)
• She Stoops to Conquer, online at Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/383)
• The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith, online at Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/3545)