No one knows the exact place or date of Goldsmith's birth. He was born between the years 1727 and 1731 somewhere in Ireland -- either County Roscommon or County Longford. Goldsmith himself maintained that his birthday was November 29, 1731, but scholars now believe it to have been November 10, 1730. He was the son of an Anglican clergyman, and left home at 14 to study at Trinity College in Dublin. He proved a poor student, and when he graduated five years later in 1749, he found himself with no future employment prospects. After two disastrous attempts at studying law at the Universities of Edinburgh in Scotland and Leiden in the Netherlands, he embarked upon a walking tour of the continent. Upon his return, he decided against going back to Ireland and settled instead in London, where he made a living as a hack writer and earned the friendship and respect of writers and thinkers such as Samuel Johnson, Horace Walpole and Edmund Burke.
Goldsmith often found himself living in financially straitened circumstances due to his love for fine clothing and strong drink. One day Samuel Johnson received a message from Goldsmith asking for help: His landlady had decided to have him arrested for nonpayment of rent. Johnson arranged to send Goldsmith a guinea (one pound and one shilling), dressed himself and walked to Goldsmith's residence. He found Goldsmith drinking. Goldsmith told Johnson that he had just completed a novel and asked if there were any chance of publishing it. Johnson perused the manuscript and, seeing that the writing was strong, brought it immediately to Francis Newberry, nephew of the famous publisher John Newberry. Newberry's publishing firm eventually printed the book, "The Vicar of Wakefield," which proved to be Goldsmith's only novel.
"The Vicar of Wakefield" is the story of the Reverend Doctor Charles Primrose, his wife Deborah and their children George, Olivia and Sophia. The novel begins with Dr. Primrose, an amiable country vicar, pleased to see his son George soon marry the lovely Arabella Wilmot, daughter of one the wealthiest men in the country. However, when Arabella's father learns that Dr. Primrose has lost his fortune to a crooked merchant who had been serving as the vicar's investment adviser, he cancels the wedding arrangements. The Primrose family, amid reduced financial circumstances, leave for a new parish.
The family soon discovers that their new landlord, Squire Thornhill, is a man of easy virtue. Mr. Burchell,a poor man from the neighborhood, rescues Sophia from drowning, and she is taken with him. Mrs. Primrose discourages her from pursuing the connection, however, and when Olivia later disappears, apparently in hope of eloping, some of the family consider Burchell the primary suspect. The culprit turns out to be not Burchell but Thornhill, who sets fire to family home in retribution for Dr. Primrose's foiling his plans. Thornhill has Primrose jailed for nonpayment of rent, and things look bleak for the family: George joins his father in prison, Olivia is apparently dead and Sophia is missing. Burchell, who turns out to be none other than Squire Thornhill's wealthy uncle William, saves Sophia and frees Dr. Primrose and George. It is revealed that Olivia is not dead, though is she legally married to Squire Thornill. William marries Sophia, George marries Arabella, and Dr. Primrose recovers his fortune when the crooked merchant is brought into custody.
Goldsmith achieved artistic, if not always financial, success during his lifetime, but following his death, his reputation began to decline, though Jane Austen, Charles Dickens and George Eliot all numbered among his admirers. The American writer Washington Irving, most famous today for stories such as "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," published what remains one of the only full length biographies of Goldsmith in 1849. Popular poetry anthologies rarely contain works by Goldsmith, and his works do not generally feature into undergraduate literature survey courses. Today, graduate students and literary scholars comprise his primary audience.