Vicar of Wakefield

Oliver Goldsmith, who lived from 1730 to 1774, was an Irish-born writer of the eighteenth century, and one of the notable figures of the literary world of Dr Johnson's London. He wrote poems, plays and essays, and he is remembered for the comedy She Stoops to Conquer, for the poem The Deserted Village and for the novel recorded here. His life was marked by money troubles, he studied at Trinity College, Dublin, and was often in debt.

The Vicar of Wakefield appeared in 1766, and it was his only novel. A well-known story has it that his friend Dr Johnson sold the manuscript to a publisher for sixty pounds in order to save Goldsmith from being arrested for unpaid rent. Whatever the exact details, the book was a success and remained popular for a very long time, becoming a favourite throughout Europe and in later generations.

The story is that of the family of Dr Primrose, a benevolent vicar, who fall from comfort into hardship and eventually rise again. Its plot has many qualities of a pantomime: impersonation, deception, a villain of aristocratic rank and the abduction of a beautiful heroine. At the same time, it provides a vivid picture of family life and circumstances in the middle of the eighteenth century, and its gentle irony makes the vicar's goodness both comic and touching.

This recording has thirty-two chapters and runs for about six and a half hours. It is read by a single LibriVox volunteer. It is a worthy choice for those who enjoy eighteenth century fiction and the gentle humour of a time when novels were still finding their form.