Selected Writings: Oliver Goldsmith

by Goldsmith, Oliver; Lucas, John

• ISBN13: 9781857547030
• ISBN10: 1857547039
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-07-01
• Publisher: Carcanet Press Ltd.

Summary

Oliver Goldsmith's wit, civility of tone, and adroit handling of form are on display in this selection of writing that also presents the author's moral seriousness which is as necessary to 21st-century society as it was to his own.

Author Biography

Oliver Goldsmith was an Irish writer and physician known for his novels, pastoral poems, and plays. He is the author of the novels The Vicar of Wakefield and She Stoops to Conquer. John Lucas is professor emeritus of English at the University of Loughborough and the University of Nottingham Trent. He is also the publisher of Shoestring Press.

Table of Contents

Introduction	7	(7)
A Note on the Texts	14	(1)
POEMS
A Prologue . . .	15	(1)
On a Beautiful Youth Struck Blind with Lightning	15	(1)
The Gift	16	(1)
A Sonnet	16	(1)
An Elegy on the Glory of Her Sex, Mrs Mary Blaize	17	(1)
The Double Transformation	18	(3)
Description of an Author's Bed-chamber	21	(1)
On Seeing Mrs *** Perform in the Character of ***	22	(1)
On the Death of the Right Honourable ***	22	(1)
An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog	23	(2)
Stanzas on Woman	25	(1)
Edwin and Angelina	25	(6)
Songs	31	(1)
The Traveller	32	(12)
A New Simile	44	(2)
Verses in Reply to an Invitation . . .	46	(1)
Epitaph on Edward Purdon	47	(1)
Epilogue to The Good-Natured Man	48	(1)
Epilogue to The Sister	49	(2)
The Deserted Village	51	(12)
Epitaph on Dr Parnell	63	(1)
The Haunch of Venison	63	(4)
Prologue to Zobeide	67	(1)
Song	68	(1)
Epilogue to She Stoops to Conquer	68	(2)
Epilogue spoken by Mr Lee Lewes . . .	70	(1)
Retaliation	71	(6)
PROSE
[On Ovid's Epistles]	77	(8)
From An Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe	85	(12)
From The Bee	97	(15)
From The Citizen of the World	112	(22)
The Revolution in Low Life	134	(3)
From An History of the Earth and Animated Nature	137	(8)
To Mrs Bunbury	145	(4)
Afterword: Goldsmith and Politics	149	(20)
Notes	169