The Vicar of Wakefield

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.

AUTHOR DECEASED. PLEASE DO NOT TRY TO CONTACT. Aileen Douglas is author of Work in Hand: Script, Print, and Writing, 1690-1840 (2017). A general editor of the Early Irish Fiction, 1680–1820 series (2010-), she has published widely on eighteenth-century fiction and women's writing. She is Professor of Eighteenth-Century Studies at Trinity College Dublin. Ian Campbell Ross is author of Laurence Sterne: A Life (2001) and editor of Sterne's The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1983; new ed. 2009). A general editor of the Early Irish Fiction, 1680–1820 series (2010-), he has written extensively on eighteenth-century Irish and British literature. He is Emeritus Professor of Eighteenth-Century Studies at Trinity College Dublin.

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