She Stoops to Conquer

As the licensed fool of this great creative circle, the Irishman had finally found his milieu and for the last decade of his short failure-ridden life, he earnestly scribbled, along with all the hack work necessary to hold his creditors at bay, one successful novel, The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), one major poem, The Deserted Village (1770), and, in an era of sanctimonious, sentimental, instantly forgettable drama, an absolute comedic masterpiece, She Stoops to Conquer (1771.) Succeeding where even the prolific Dr. Johnson could not, Goldsmith flew in the face of convention and created a robust comedy, all farce and not satire, all humor and not mere wit.

It was so daring, so 'outside' anything the 18th century had produced, that Garrick balked at producing it at Drury Lane even though the generous Dr. Johnson proclaimed it the greatest play of their generation. Finally, George Colman presented She Stoops in March 1773 at Covent Garden. It has been running in some playhouse ever since.

Goldsmith barely lived to enjoy his achievement, dying of fever and self-administered purgatives on Easter Monday, 1774. The scale of his debts led to a quiet burial.

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