Oliver Goldsmith was born near Ballymahon, Ireland and educated at several grammar schools before entering Trinity College Dublin as a sizar (B.A. 1750); he studied medicine in Edinburgh (1752-53). Goldsmith traveled on the Continent before settling in London (1756); failing to establish a medical practice, he taught school and wrote for the Monthly Review (1757-58); in 1759 he edited The Bee before gaining a high reputation as a poet, playwright, and novelist shortly before his death.
TEXT RECORDS:
1767The Beauties of English Poesy: The School-Mistress.
1770The Deserted Village, a Poem.
PUBLICATIONS:
J. Marteilhe, Memoirs of a Protestant [trans. Goldsmith]. 2 vols, 1758.
The bee. 1759.
The present state of polite learning in Europe. 1759.
The citizen of the world. 2 vols, 1762.
The life of Richard Nash of Bath. 1762.
The mystery revealed. 1762.
Plutarch's Lives [trans. Goldsmith]. 4 vols, 1762.
The history of England in a series of letters. 2 vols, 1764.
The history of the Martyrs and primitive fathers of the church. 1764.
Essays. 1765, 1766.
M. Formey, A concise history of philosophy [trans. Goldsmith]. 1766.
The traveller; or, a prospect of society. 1764.
The vicar of Wakefield. 1766.
The beauties of English poetry [ed. Goldsmith]. 2 vols, 1767.
Poems for young ladies. 1767.
The good-natured man. 1768.
The present state of the British empire. 1768.
The Roman history. 2 vols, 1769.
The deserted village. 1770.
The life of Henry St. John, Lord Viscount Bolingbroke. 1770.
The life of Thomas Parnell. 1770.
The history of England, from the earliest times to the death of George II. 4 vols, 1771.
Threnodia Augustalis. 1772.
She stoops to conquer. 1773.
The Grecian history. 2 vols, 1774.
An history of the Earth and animated nature. 8 vols, 1774.
Retaliation. 1774.
The comic romance of Scarron [trans. Goldsmith]. 2 vols, 1775.
The haunch of venison: a poetical epistle. 1776.
A survey of experimental philosophy. 2 vols, 1776.
The Poetical Works of Goldsmith, Collins, and T. Warton, ed. G. Gilfillan. 1854.
The grumbler, ed. Alice I. P. Wood. 1931.
Collected letters, ed. Katherine C. Balderson. 1928.
Collected works, ed. Arthur Friedman. 5 vols, 1966.
PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:
Irish
English
Anglican
Trinity College Dublin
Bachelor of Arts
Edinburgh University
editor
poet
essayist
journalist
dramatist
novelist
historian
The Critical Review
The Monthly Review
The Bee
British Magazine
Lady's Magazine
The Public Ledger
Busy Body
Westminster Magazine
Royal Magazine
Edmund Burke
Lord Charlemont
George Colman
William Cook
Richard Cumberland
Richard Fenton
Rev. James Fordyce
David Garrick
Ralph Griffiths
William Jackson of Exeter
Samuel Johnson
Anthony King
Rev. Vicesimus Knox
Edmond Malone
William Julius Mickle
John Newbery
Bp. Thomas Percy
Joshua Reynolds
Tobias Smollett
Rev. William Thompson
REFERENCE:
DNB; NCBEL.
William Rider, Living Authors of Great Britain (1762); Pearch, Supplement to Dodsley's Collection (1768-83); "Short Character of Dr. Goldsmith" London Magazine 42 (February 1773) 57-58 [portrait]; "Anecdotes of Goldsmith" Annual Register for 1774 (1774) 29-34; "Anecdotes of Goldsmith" Westminster Magazine 2 (April 1774) 167; "Anecdotes of the late Dr. Goldsmith" Walker's Hibernian Magazine 4 (May 1774) 267-68; "Anecdotes of the late Dr. Goldsmith" Annual Register for 1774 (1774) 29-34; Thomas Davies, in Life of Garrick (1780); "Anecdotes of the late Dr. Goldsmith" Public Advertiser (29 September 1780); Biographia Dramatica (1782; 1812); "Anecdotes of Goldsmith" New London Magazine 5 (July 1789) 345-48; "Anecdotes of Goldsmith" Massachusetts Magazine 2 (February 1790) 51-52; James Boswell, Life of Johnson (1791); Lounger's Common-Place Book (1792; 1796); William Cook, "Anecdotes of Goldsmith" European Magazine 24 (August-October 1793) 91-93, 170-74, 258-63; "New Anecdotes of Oliver Goldsmith" Town and Country Magazine 26 (March-July 1794) 109-14, 244-48, 294-97; Robert Anderson, British Poets (1795); "Cursory Observations on Goldsmith's Deserted Village" Walker's Hibernian Magazine (November 1800) 270-73; "Original Anecdotes of Goldsmith" Monthly Magazine 14 (December 1802) 362; "Life of Goldsmith" Port Folio [Philadelphia] 5 (29 June-27 July 1805) 193-94, 201-02, 209-10, 225-26; Samuel Egerton Brydges, "Oliver Goldsmith" Censura Literaria 5 (1807) 54-75; Richard Cumberland, in Memoirs (1807); Robert Southey, Specimens of Later English Poets (1807); John Evans, "Anecdotes of Dr. Goldsmith" Monthly Magazine 25 (June 1808) 393-94; John Aikin, "Oliver Goldsmith" Port Folio [Philadelphia] NS 6 (15 October-5 November 1808)246-48, 260-64, 277-80, 295-300; John Aikin, "On the Poetry of Oliver Goldsmith" Port Folio [Philadelphia] NS 6 (26 November, 10 December 1808) 342-46, 376-80; Samuel Jackson Pratt, Cabinet of Poetry (1808); "Comments on the Character and Writings of Oliver Goldsmith" Port Folio [Philadelphia] NS 6 (September 1811) 210-25; "Cumberland and Goldsmith" Port Folio [Philadelphia] NS 6 (October-November 1811) 370-77, 480-84; Alexander Chalmers, General Biographical Dictionary (1812-17); "Oliver Goldsmith" The Champion (11 December 1814) 398-99; "A Curious Criticism on Goldsmith's Deserted Village" Port Folio S3 4 (October 1814) 315-21; "[French] Translation of Goldsmith's Deserted Village" Port Folio [Philadelphia] S4 1 (January 1816) 38-42; "The Solitary Reflector: Goldsmith" European Magazine 70 (September-October 1816) 233-36, 308-11; Percy correspondence in Nichols, Illustrations of the Literary History of the XVIII Century (1817-58); "Anecdotes of Oliver Goldsmith" Gentleman's Magazine 88 (July 1818) 17-21; Richard Ryan, Biographia Hibernica (1819); John Aikin, Select Works of the British Poets (1820); John Graham, "Oliver Goldsmith's Family" Gentleman's Magazine 91 (May 1821) 392; "Modern Pilgrimages: Auburn" New Monthly Magazine NS 2 (November 1821) 449-53; Henry Francis Cary, "Oliver Goldsmith" London Magazine 5 (February 1822) 106-12; "Eminent Authors: Goldsmith" Literary Speculum 1 (March 1822) 312-14; "Life of Oliver Goldsmith" Port Folio [Philadelphia] S4 13 (June 1822) 473-87 [from Cary]; William Hazlitt, Select British Poets (1824); "Oliver Goldsmith" The Minerva [New York] NS 2 (13 December 1824) 155-57; Robert Watt, Bibliotheca Britannica (1824); Biographical Magazine 1 (1829) [portrait]; George B. Cheever, Studies in Poetry ... Elegant Extracts (1830); The Georgian Era: Memoirs of the most Eminent Persons (1832-34); James Prior, Life of Oliver Goldsmith (1837); Robert Chambers, Cyclopaedia of English Literature (1844); Thomas Babington Macaulay, "Oliver Goldsmith" Critical and Historical Essays (1843); Washington Irving, Life of Oliver Goldsmith (1844); William Howitt, Homes and Haunts of the ... British Poets (1847); John Forster, The Life and Times of Oliver Goldsmith (1848); Thomas De Quincey, "Oliver Goldsmith" North British Review (May 1848); Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1858-71; 1882); David Masson, memoir in Miscellaneous Works of Oliver Goldsmith (1868); Alfred Webb, Compendium of Irish Biography (1878); William Black, Oliver Goldsmith (1879); The English Poets, ed. Thomas Humphry Ward (1880); Austin Dobson, Life of Oliver Goldsmith (1888); Austin Dobson, "Goldsmith's Library" in Eighteenth-Century Vignettes (1892-96); Moulton, Library of Literary Criticism (1901-05); Richard Ashe King, Oliver Goldsmith (1910); D. J. O'Donoghue, Poets of Ireland (1912); Iolo Williams, Seven Eighteenth-Century Bibliographies (1924); Alumni Dublinenses (1924); Alda Milner-Barry, "A Note on the Early Literary Relations of Oliver Goldsmith and Thomas Percy" RES 2 (1926) 51-66; Austin Dobson, "Percy and Goldsmith" in Old Kensington Palace (1926); John S. Crone, Concise Dictionary of Irish Biography (1928); Temple Scott, Oliver Goldsmith, Bibliographically and Biographically Considered (1928); R. S. Crane, "Oliver Goldsmith, M.B." Modern Language Notes 48 (1933) 462-65; Arthur Friedman, "Goldsmith's Contributions to the Critical Review" Modern Philology 44 (1946) 23-52; Ralph Wardle, Goldsmith (1957); Ricardo Quintana, Goldsmith: a Georgian Study (1967); A. N. L. Munby, Sale Catalogues of Libraries of Eminent Persons (1971-75); George S. Rousseau, Goldsmith: The Critical Heritage (1974); Chadwyck-Healey English Poetry Database (1995); Andrew Carpenter, Verse ... from Eighteenth-Century Ireland (1998).
COMMENTARY RECORDS
for Oliver Goldsmith:
BIOGRAPHY RECORDS
for Oliver Goldsmith:
AUTHOR AS CRITIC:
(commentary records)
AUTHOR AS CRITIC:
(biography records)
1. | 1770 Rev. Thomas Parnell: Oliver Goldsmith, Life of Parnell (1770) in Goldsmith, Works, ed. Cunningham (1854) 4:129-45. |