Vicar of Wakefield

Summary

With little doubt, The Vicar of Wakefield is Oliver Goldsmith’s most enduring novel. It was written between 1761 and 1762 though only published later that decade in 1766 when Dr. Johnson sold it for Goldsmith at a price of £60. We begin and occasionally return to as state of idyllic calm in the parish of the eponymous clergyman, Dr Primrose, but disaster strike quickly Primrose is made penniless by the bankrupting of a merchant. Squire Thornhill makes his appearance on the scene and in hisdashing manner encourages questionable attitudes and behaviour in Primrose’s wife and children, while there are various subsidiary adventures such as poor Mr Burchell’s valiant saving of Sophie Primrose and later suspicion for the disappearance of sister Olivia. The novel follows the vicar’s fruitless quest to find his daughter, his accidental discovery of his son George, and the wretched Thornhill’s vulgar treatment of women. The moral tale is notable for Primrose’s strength of character in times of great difficulty and for its rejection of the ostentatious style of other novels of the time.

Table of contents

• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Chapter 9
• Chapter 10
• Chapter 11
• Chapter 12
• Chapter 13
• Chapter 14
• Chapter 15
• Chapter 16
• Chapter 17
• Chapter 18
• Chapter 19
• Chapter 20
• Chapter 21
• Chapter 22
• Chapter 23
• Chapter 24
• Chapter 25
• Chapter 26
• Chapter 27
• Chapter 28
• Chapter 29
• Chapter 30
• Chapter 31
• Chapter 32

More by Oliver Goldsmith

• The Disabled Soldier

Other Fiction classics

• Lady Chatterley's Lover — D.H. Lawrence
• Crime and Punishment — Fyodor Dostoevsky
• Billy Budd — Herman Melville
• Ulysses — James Joyce
• Dubliners — James Joyce
• Little Women — Louisa M. Alcott