The Life of Oliver Goldsmith

The Life of Oliver Goldsmith is Washington Irving's homage to one of the comic geniuses of the 18th Century and a childhood hero to whom he is much indebted. Although neither compendious nor impartial, this biography remains a classic text on Goldsmith and 18th Century drama because of Iriving's exceptional prose and his approach to the playwright as a fellow word-smith. If any work ever approached the early 19th Century ideal of art made as a critique of art, The Life of Oliver Goldsmith certainly does.