Oliver Goldsmith

(1730 - 1774)

Having studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh, traveled around Europe, and worked as an apothecary’s assistant, Oliver Goldsmith in 1760 began writing fictional missives—The Citizen of the World, or, Letters from a Chinese Philosopher—akin to Montesquieu’s Persian Letters, earning him critical acclaim. A member of the Literary Club, which included Samuel Johnson and Joshua Reynolds, he published the novel The Vicar of Wakefield in 1766 and had his comedy She Stoops to Conquer performed in 1773.