Oliver Goldsmith

The cover is scuffed and stained. The back cover board is cracked, and there appears to be water damage along the crack, visible on the inside of the back cover; it is not obvious from the outside. The text is not affected. There is a previous owner's name and school inscription on the inside front cover and flyleaf. The book shows wear from age and use. Oliver Goldsmith: A Biography by Washington Irving, in the Lake English Classics series, edited by George Philip Krapp, Ph.D., Scott, Foresman and Company, 1906 (copyright 1904). Irving's life of Goldsmith, first published in 1849, follows the Irish-born writer from his boyhood in Ireland through his years of poverty in London to fame as the author of The Vicar of Wakefield, The Deserted Village, and She Stoops to Conquer, among Samuel Johnson, Joshua Reynolds, Edmund Burke, and the Literary Club. This school edition includes a lengthy introduction and an index. Krapp later became a professor of English at Columbia and author of The English Language in America. The book was used by a high school student in Kansas: the owner's name, Florence Dayton, appears with "Abilene High School" and the years '07–'10 (sophomore) on the inside front cover and flyleaf, and the book descended in her family until now. Abilene High School in Kansas was also the school of Dwight D. Eisenhower (class of 1909), making this a small record of how literature was taught there in his era.…