A review of the book THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD. Written by Howard when he was attending Brownwood Highschool between 1922-23. It’s undated.
Howard also mentioned the Vicar of Wakefield to H.P. Lovecraft in November 2, 1932 (see Collected Letters Volume 2 – letter #220). Here’s an extract from the letter:
I wouldn’t take anything, though, for my early readings of Scott, Dickens and other English writers. I doubt if I could read Dickens now — with the exception of Pickwick Papers which is my favorite of all his books. He gets on my nerves, not so much by his tedium as by the spineless cringing crawling characters he portrays. I don’t doubt he was drawing them true to life, but that realization makes the matter more damnable. Nicholas Nickleby was about the only one of his characters who had any guts at all. Why good gad, his characters submitted to indignities and insults and outrages that made me grind my teeth merely to read about. And I’m a peaceable man. The same can be said about The Vicar of Wakefield, one of the most abominable books ever penned. I’ve never had any respect for Goldsmith since reading it. The old cuss in the book had one daughter seduced, if I’m not mistaken, and the other abducted by the same egg. So he stood around mouthing pious platitudes — the old jackass.
Published in:
- UNTITLED LETTER, October 9, 1992, Glenn Lord, November 1992 [Distributed in REHUPA #118]
- THE NEW HOWARD READER #5, Marek, March 1999
- SENTIMENT: AN OLIO OF RARER WORKS, REH Foundation Press, December 2009
- BACK TO SCHOOL, REH Foundation Press, December 2012
