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Author: Goldsmith, Oliver

Biography:

Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-74: ODNB)

The son of an Anglo-Irish clergyman, Charles Goldsmith, and his wife Ann (Jones) Goldsmith, he graduated from Trinity College Dublin in 1750 but was for some time unsettled about his future course. He was not suitable for the church; he gambled away money meant to be spent on legal studies; and although he spent some years studying medicine at the University of Edinburgh and on the Continent, he does not appear ever to have completed the requirements for a medical degree and he failed the examination to be a ship's surgeon with the East India Company. He did however occasionally practise medicine and was generally given the title "Doctor." He found success working for the booksellers of Grub Street in London as a versatile writer of reviews, histories, biographies, translations, and social commentary. His best-known works before 1770 were the essays collected in The Citizen of the World (1762), a long poem entitled The Traveller (1764), his very popular fiction The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), and the first of several lucrative plays, The Good-Natur'd Man (1768). He was a clubbable man, a close friend of Johnson, Garrick, Reynolds, and Burke: he dedicated The Deserted Village to Reynolds. He died in his lodgings in London and was buried in the grounds of the Church of St Mary, Middle Temple; Johnson composed the Latin inscription for the marble memorial to him in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey. (ODNB 9 Jan. 2019)

 

Other Names:

  • Doctor Goldsmith
  • Dr. Goldsmith
  • Goldsmith
 

Books written (42):

From the London edn. Philadelphia: "reprinted" by William and Thomas Bradford, 1771
8th edn. London: G. Kearsly, 1777
London: R. Dodsley, 1779
New edn. London: [no publisher], 1788
London/ Gainsbro': Osborne and Griffin/ Mozley, 1789
4th edn. London: Stephen Couchman, G. G. J. and J. Robinson, E. Newbery, G. Wilkie, T. Vernor, J. Parsons, Darton and Harvey, and T. Boosey, 1792
Worcester [MA]/ Boston/ Walpole NH: Isaiah Thomas/ Isaiah Thomas and Andrews/ Isaiah Thomas, 1793
London: Printed for J. Roach, Russell Court, Drury Lane, 1793
London: [no publisher: printed by Bulmer], 1795
Bath: S. Hazard and all other booksellers in town and country, 1796
London: Cadell and Davies, 1804
London: Suttaby and Crosby; C. Corrall, 1806
Gotha: Steudel and Keil, 1807
Bennington VT: printed by Anthony Haswell, 1808
Bennington VT: printed by Anthony Haswell, 1808
Charlestown MA: Asahel Brown, 1810
London/ Cambridge/ York: J. Johnson, J. Nichols and Son, R. Baldwin, E. and C. Rivington, W. Otridge and Son, Leigh and Sotheby, R. Faulder and Son, G. Nichol and Son, T. Payne, G. Robinson, Wilkie and Robinson, C. Davies, T. Egerton, Scatcherd and Letterman, J. Walker, Vernor, Hood, and Sharpe, R. Lea, J. Nunn, Lackington, Allen, and Co., J. Stockdale, Cuthell and Martin, Clarke and Sons, J. White and Co., Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, Cadell and Davies, J. Barker, John Richardson, J. M. Richardson, J. Carpenter, B. Crosby, E. Jeffery, J. Murray, W. Miller, J. and A. Arch, Black, Parry, and Kingsbury, J. Booker, S. Bagster, J. Harding, J. Mackinlay, J. Hatchard, R. H. Evans, Matthews and Leigh, J. Mawman, J. Booth, J. Asperne, P. and W. Wynne, W. Grace/ Deighton and Son/ Wilson and Son, 1810
New York: Samuel Wood and Sons, 1816
New York/ Richmond VA: R. and W. A. Bartow/ W. A. Bartow, 1820
Derby/ London: Henry Mozley/ George Cowie and Co., 1826
1st American from the 20th Dublin edn. Rochester [NY]: printed by Edwin Scranton, 1827
New York: Charles P. Fessenden, 1831
Philadelphia: J. Crissy and Desilver, Thomas and Co., 1835