A CHRONOLOGY OF OLIVER GOLDSMITH

1730?	(10 November) born, either at Pallas, County Longford, or at Ardnagowan—his grandmother’s house—near Elphin, the second son and fifth child of the Revd Charles Goldsmith and his wife Ann (née James). The family soon moves to Lissoy, where Goldsmith spends his childhood. James Thomson completes The Seasons.
1735–45	Attends school at Lissoy, the Diocesan School at Elphin, and schools in Athlone and Edgeworthstown, County Longford.
1745	(11 June) admitted as a sizar to Trinity College Dublin. Death of Jonathan Swift.
1747	(21 May) death of father; Goldsmith takes part in a student riot for which he received a ‘public admonishment’. Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa (to 1748).
1749	Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones.
1750	Receives AB degree. Samuel Johnson begins The Rambler.
1750–2	Attempts unsuccessfully to be ordained into the Anglican Church. Returns to his mother’s home near Athlone, and entertains the possibility of emigrating to America (from Cork) and studying law in London. He is engaged for a short time as a private tutor to a family in County Roscommon.
1751	Tobias Smollett’s Peregrine Pickle; Henry Fielding’s Amelia.
1752	Charlotte Lennox’s The Female Quixote.
1752–4	Studies medicine at Edinburgh.
1753	Elected to the Medical Society at Edinburgh University.
1754	Leaves Edinburgh and attends medical lectures at Leyden. Death of Henry Fielding.
1755–6	Travels across the Continent, often on foot, visiting Germany, Switzerland, France, and northern Italy.
1755	Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language.
1756	(1 February) returns to England; settles in London.
1756–7	Engaged in various odd jobs in and around London, including positions as an apothecary, physician, proofreader, and an usher in a boys’ school in Peckham. May have applied for and received his medical degree from Trinity College Dublin.
1757	Begins reviewing for the Monthly Review, while lodging with its editor, Ralph Griffiths.
1759	Begins contributing to Tobias Smollett’s Critical Review; (2 April) publishes An Inquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe; also contributes essays and reviews to The Busy Body, The British Magazine, and The Lady’s Magazine; (6 October–25 November) writes the periodical paper The Bee.
1760–1	Publishes his ‘Chinese Letters’ in the Public Ledger and continues to write for other magazines.
1761	(31 May) first visited by Dr Samuel Johnson.
1762	The ‘Chinese Letters’ collected and republished as The Citizen of the World; publishes The Life of Richard Nash; effects his release from arrest for debt by selling a third share in The Vicar of Wakefield on 28 October.
1764	An History of England, in a Series of Letters from a Nobleman to his Son and (19 December) The Traveller, or A Prospect of Society.
1765	Essays by Mr. Goldsmith; private edition of Edwin and Angelina.
1766	(27 March) The Vicar of Wakefield; (31 May) second edition; (27 August) third edition.
1767	(April) two-volume anthology, The Beauties of English Poesy.
1768	(29 January) The Good Natur’d Man acted at Covent Garden and published; death of his brother Henry, to whom he had dedicated The Traveller. Death of Laurence Sterne and publication of A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy.
1769	(18 May) publishes The Roman History; (December) appointed professor of Ancient History in the Royal Academy. (9 December) fourth authorized edition of The Vicar of Wakefield; David Garrick’s Shakespeare Jubilee in Stratford-Upon-Avon; John Wilkes expelled from the House of Commons.
1770	(26 May) publishes The Deserted Village.
1771	Henry Mackenzie’s The Man of Feeling.
1772	Performance of his Threnodia Augustalis; falls ill in the late summer with a serious bladder infection.
1773	She Stoops to Conquer produced at Covent Garden and published; contributes essays to the Westminster Magazine.
1774	(2 April) fifth authorized edition of The Vicar of Wakefield; Retaliation and An History of the Earth, and Animated Nature; (4 April) dies in his chambers in the Middle Temple.
1776	Monument to Goldsmith erected in Westminster Abbey. The Haunch of Venison published posthumously. Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (vol. i); Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations; American Declaration of Independence.