Selected Writings

Oliver Goldsmith

Carcanet, 1988 - 180 pàgines

Continguts

• Introduction: 7
• A Note on the Texts: 14
• Description of an Authors Bedchamber: 21

Sobre l'autor

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, 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.

Informació bibliogràfica

• Títol: Selected Writings; Fyfield books
• Autor: Oliver Goldsmith
• Editor: John Lucas
• Editor: Carcanet, 1988
• Original de: Universitat de Michigan
• Digitalitzat el: 7 Març 2008
• ISBN: 0856356239, 9780856356230
• Nre. de pàgines: 180 pàgines