Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×

Online ordering will be unavailable from 17:00 GMT on Friday, April 25 until 17:00 GMT on Sunday, April 27 due to maintenance. We apologise for the inconvenience.

  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

26 results

Page 1 of 2

  • Chapter 12 - Marriage

  • from Part II - Social, Cultural, and Intellectual Contexts
  • Edited by Michael Griffin, University of Limerick, David O'Shaughnessy, University of Galway
  • Book:
    Oliver Goldsmith in Context
    Published online:
    28 November 2024
    Print publication:
    07 November 2024, pp 96-103

  • Summary

    The Vicar of Wakefield is a tale with marriage at its core. This chapter puts that preoccupation in historical and cultural context, accounting for the importance of the Whistonian controversy and Hardwicke Marriage Act of 1753 as backdrops to a novel which does not merely reflect its time, but anticipates subsequent treatments of the institution of marriage in fiction.

The Vicar of Wakefield
  • A Tale, supposed to be Written by Himself
  • Oliver Goldsmith
  • Edited by Aileen Douglas, Ian Campbell Ross
  • Published online:
    30 May 2024
    Print publication:
    13 June 2024
  • This newly edited critical edition of an enduringly popular tale, one of the most widely reprinted and illustrated works of fiction in English, offers readers an authoritative text along with extensive and helpful annotation. Following the lives of the vicar and his family, and the various calamities which befall them, The Vicar of Wakefield was one of the most popular and beloved works of eighteenth-century fiction. A lively introduction details the reception of Goldsmith's tale, from comments by Frances Burney and Goethe, through Sir Walter Scott, Washington Irving and Henry James, to critics of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The volume also includes appendices comprising a wealth of contextual information, enhancing the work for contemporary readers. For scholars of Goldsmith and new readers alike, this edition will prove the authoritative version of a tale that moved generations of readers to laughter and to tears.

Page 1 of 2