The Vicar of Wakefield A Tale by Oliver Goldsmith. Prefatory memoir by George Saintsbury. The vicar of wakefield. London: john van voorst, 1855. With thirty-two illustrations by William Mulready. Quarto, full dark green morocco tooled in blind, spine with raised bands lettered in gilt, top edge gilt others uncut, marbled endpapers. The illustrations in this handsomely bound volume are charming, very well executed and “in tune” with the mood of the story. Oliver Goldsmith was born in Ireland in 1728 and died in London, England in 1774. He went to trinity college and after graduating meant to emigrate to america but missed his ship! Instead he was given 50 pounds in order to study to become a lawyer but gambled away the money, was then given additional funds to study medicine at Edinburgh university but ... After a little more than a year he abandonded those studies and went the leyden and from there on a walking tour of Europe. Goldsmith arrived back in london in 1756 and became a prolific writer of anything that would pay money. He belonged to the circle of johnson, burke, reynolds, and was one of "the club." The traveller appeared in 1764, and his reputation as a poet was firmly established. The vicar of wakefield, published two years later, increased his popularity, and when he produced his first play, the good natur'd man (1768), though the play was not a success, it was widely read in book-form. In 1770 came the deserted village, and three years after his dramatic masterpiece, she stoops to conquer, which was highly successful. Goldsmith was meanwhile busy with a great deal of hack-work -- the natural history, the histories of england, rome, and greece -- which was very remunerative. But Goldsmith's carelessness, his intemperance, and his habit of gambling, soon brought him into debt. Broken in health and mind, he died in 1774.

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Spine somewhat darkend some wear to joints.