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Product Description
Oliver Goldsmith's hugely successful novel of 1766 remained for generations one of the most highly regarded and beloved works of eighteenth-century fiction. It depicts the fall and rise of the Primrose family, presided over by the benevolent vicar, the narrator of a fairy-tale plot of impersonation and deception, the abduction of a beautiful heroine and the machinations of an aristocratic villain. By turns comic and sentimental, the novel's popularity owes much to its recognizable depiction of domestic life and loving family relationships.
New to this edition is an introduction by Robert L. Mack that examines the reasons for the novels enduring popularity, as well as the critical debates over whether it is a straightforward novel of sentiment or a satire on the social and economic inequalities of the period and the very literary conventions and morality it seems to embody. This edition also includes a new, up-to-date bibliography and expanded notes, and contains reprints of Arthur Friedman's authoritative Oxford English Novels text of the corrected first edition of 1766.
Customer Review: A good story of 18th Century England
Oliver Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield is one of those books you told yourself in college to read but never quite got around to it. It is Goldsmith's only novel and includes several of his poems. The book might be termed "The Book of Job as written by Jane Austen," in that it tells of the toils and troubles that beset an English vicar and his family, while at the same time being concerned with the love affairs of young people. The family Wakefield consists of the vicar, his wife and six children, two older boys, two girls of marriageable age and two small boys. The family is forced by circumstances to leave their good, middle class life in Wakefield and move to a lesser, but still tolerable existence in the countryside. There they encounter a variety of characters, some good and some bad and some seemingly good, but bad and some seemingly bad, but good--it all gets sorted out in the end.
Much of what happens in the book is improbable, but the idea is not to present a factual account as much as a story about morality. As time goes by we see the foibles of the vicar and his family, but at the same time we see their natural goodness as well. But their problems mount and the book descends into what seems like unrelieved misery. We keep waiting for the negatives to turn into positives--after all this is not Thomas Hardy--but they are slow in coming and then are crammed into an implausible ending. One advantage of the book is that it is relatively short (less than 200 pages), thus we are not forced to wade through 500 pages of drudgery to find an alls well that ends well ending.
I rate it at four stars because it is an excellent example of classical English writing with a story line that gives some insights into the life and values of English people at a time when England was growing in influence and power in the world.
Customer Review: only oliver goldsmith you'll ever read?
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Hey more 18th century English literature!
This book has one big advantage: It's super short- like 200 pages of regular text. It is so, so much easier to read then any of the other books I've read from this period. This is also the only book you will ever read by Oliver Goldsmith. Sorry- it's true. Goldsmith is a kind of Dickensian character- graduated last in his class at Trinity in Dublin, failed as a writer. Luckily he was buddies with Samuel Johnson- it was his intervention that got Vicar published after a two year delay. It was only 10 or so years before he died. He was just a miserable cat, but Vicar of Wakefield has endured, perhaps because of his kind of "celebrity"- an early Kurt Cobain type, but without the suicide.
The story is about a Vicar who loses all his money and has to move to the sticks, where his elder daughter is seduced by the rakish land lord. The Vicar defies the landlord's attempt to prostitute his daughter, and ends up in prison, only to be freed by the villainous landlord's noble Uncle- who had been pretending to be someone else for the whole novel! Typical 18th century plot twist- the appearance of characters in different roles. Can this not be linked to the practice of the theater, where cast members would re appear.
As I said, it reads fast- maybe three hours tops if you just sit down with it. It's a "minor classic."
Customer Review: a spoof on sentimentalist fiction
I have, in a way, two completely separate reviews for this novel, with two completely different rankings. As a serious novel it gets one star; as a comic novel it gets four. I have gone with the four-star ranking because I have very little doubt of which it is.
If this book was in fact written as a serious panegyric upon the glories and virtues of the simple, holy life, and the blessings that come to those who persevere in the face of adversity, it is the most consummate tripe. The characters are caricatures, the emotions farcical, the plot lines banal. Primrose (the narrator) is a fool, and a particularly pretentious and self-righteous one. The women in the novel should make any self-respecting woman cringe. The tireless soliloquies on economics, politics and religion make you unwittingly begin to skim. I will take Wittgenstein's advice and just pass over the ending in silence. Think Danielle Steele in a more obscure vernacular, but worse. (Yes, that's right, worse.)
Thankfully, it's not serious (or, at least, I am almost certain that it isn't). As a comic novel it comes off kind of like a Zucker, Abrahams, Zucker movie about a Jane Austen novel. The beauty of it is, however, is that it's so deadpan, it's so subtle in its irony, that for the first eighty pages I really thought it was sincere - albeit terrible. I won't go into the plot details as most of you probably don't want someone to spoil the plot for you, and the rest can easily find it succinctly traced out by my fellow reviewers. I will say that it's a Book-of-Job-style parable, and one of the most complete and believable satires I've ever read.
(I will add, just to give my review some perspective, that I love 18th century British literature, Fielding and Sterne in particular. In other words, my opinion has not been overtly colored by an ignorance of either the genre or the writing styles of the period. At least, I hope not.)
Customer Review: "I . . . chose my wife, as she did her wedding gown, not for a fine glossy surface, but such qualities as would wear well."
Told with a great deal of tongue-in-cheek humor and wit, The Vicar of Wakefield, published in 1766, features the delightfully innocent Dr. Primrose, a cleric who believes that kindness and virtue will always be rewarded. Surrounded by his wife and six children, Dr. Primrose lives a comfortable life, but he becomes the victim of theft when his broker runs off with all his investments, leaving him penniless, just as his son George is about to be married. When George's marriage is canceled due to his lack of prospects, the family moves to the country, where Dr. Primrose becomes vicar of a rural church.
One disaster follows another, involving Dr. Primrose and his family. The poor but kind Mr. Burchell, who saved daughter Sophia from drowning and befriended the family, later shocks Dr. Primrose by slandering the daughters and ruining their chances to become companions to two women in London. The sale of the family's only horses to a trickster leaves them virtually penniless. His older daughter Olivia is abducted and "ruined." The house catches fire, and their landlord demands his rent, knowing that the family has nothing. No matter how outrageous the calamities (and those mentioned above are only a sample), Dr. Primrose insists on seeing the bright side, even when there is no bright side. Virtue and goodness, he is convinced, will always be rewarded.
Owing as much to eighteenth century satiric comedy as to the developing novel, the story of Dr. Primrose and his family satirizes the sentimentality of early novels, such as Pamela, while it makes use of sentimental devices to further its plot. Poking gentle fun at Dr. Primrose for his innocence, Goldsmith never mocks or belittles him. Coincidence, mistaken identities, the humiliation of all the villains, innumerable surprises, and the restoration of Dr. Primrose's fortunes lead to the "deserved" happiness of Dr. Primrose and his family in the conclusion. Virtue is indeed rewarded, and evil is indeed punished. A gentle novel filled with charm, The Vicar of Wakefield feels like a "lady's novel," one which lacks the bawdy excess of Fielding and the unique humor of Sterne, while never taking itself too seriously. n Mary Whipple
She Stoops to Conquer and Other Comedies (Oxford World's Classics)
Oliver Goldsmith; a biography. By Washington Irving.
The poetical works of Oliver Goldsmith. With a life, by Thomas Babington Macaulay.
Customer Review: The Vicar is a Swell Guy!
"Now," cried I, holding up my children, "now let the flames burn on, and all my possessions perish. Here they are, I have saved my treasure. Here, my dearest, here are our treasures, and we shall yet be happy."
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It is a wonderful quick read about a man (family) over coming adversities in life, yet continuing to hold on to and cherish what is important in life. Dr. Primrose never becomes jaded after all that is thrown at him. Just when you think he can take no more, more is piled onto him. In the end, of course, all is well. While I wouldn't call the book exciting itself, there are exciting elements...kidnappings, death, cheating, and more. I enjoyed it so much because Dr. Primrose is truly a stand up guy and one we can all learn lessons from.
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