Oliver Goldsmith (November 10, 1730 – April 4, 1774) was an Irish writer 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).
Easton Press Oliver Goldsmith books
She Stoops to Conquer - 100 Greatest Books Ever Written - 1978
The Vicar of Wakefield - The Collector's Library of Famous Editions - 1992
Franklin Library Oliver Goldsmith books
The Vicar of Wakefield - World's Best Loved Books - 1984
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Oliver Goldsmith biography
Goldsmith was born in the townland of Pallas, near Ballymahon, County Longford, where his father was Anglican curate of the parish of Forgney. Goldsmith's birth date is not known for certain. According to the Library of Congress authority file, he told a biographer that he was born on November 29, 1731 or perhaps 1730. Other sources have indicated November 10, on any year from 1727 to 1731. November 10, 1730 is now the most commonly accepted birth date, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica.
When he was aged two, his father was appointed rector of the parish of Kilkenny West in County Westmeath. The family moved to the parsonage at Lissoy, between Athlone and Ballymahon, and continued to live there until his father's death in 1747.
He earned his Bachelor of Arts in 1749 at Trinity College, Dublin, studying theology and law but never getting as far as ordination. Nevertheless, his name has been given to a new lecture theatre and student accommodation on the Trinity College campus, Goldsmith Hall. 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 and addicted to gambling, 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 founding member of "The Club". The combination of his literary work and his dissolute lifestyle led Horace Walpole to giving him the much quoted epithet of Inspired Idiot.
Goldsmith is recorded as being a highly jealous man, a likeable but disorganised character who once failed to emigrate to America because he missed the ferry.
Death
He was buried in Temple Church; his death in 1774 may have been partly caused by his own misdiagnosis of his kidney infection. There is a monument to him in Westminster Abbey with an epitaph written by Samuel Johnson.Oliver Goldsmith books in order
The Present State of Polite Learning in Europe (1759)Account of the Augustan Age in England (1759)
The Life of Richard Nash (Beau Nash) (1762)
The Citizen of the World (1762)
The Traveller (1764)
The Hermit (1765)
The Vicar of Wakefield (1766)
The Good-natur'd Man (1768)
The Deserted Village (1770)
The History of England, from the Earliest Times to the Death of George II in 4 volumes (1771)
Dr. Goldsmith's Roman History Abridged by Himself for the Use of Schools (1772)
She Stoops to Conquer (1773)
An History of the Earth and Animated Nature in 8 volumes (1774)
Published posthumously
The Comic Romance of Monsieur Scarron in 2 vols. (1775)The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith (1887)
The Poems and Plays of Oliver Goldsmith (1889)
The Grumbler: An Adaptation (1931)
Source and additional information: Oliver Goldsmith