The Vicar of Wakefield

Hi guys, today, I will be talking about The Vicar of Wakefield. It is a book set in England, before the dawn of the industrial age, but far after the middle ages. It is an interesting book, but difficult to read. The style of writing is very, very different than what we have today, and there are a lot of archaic spellings. However, it provides an interesting perspective of what things were like then.

The story is written about a wealthy vicar, and his family. He has a family of two daughters, and four sons. The vicar loses his fortune after a partner walks out with most of his money, and they are forced to move to another town for employment. They live there for a while, but more and more misfortunes stack up upon them. Eventually, when things seem like they could not get any worse, everything resolves itself, and they are all happy.

Things get pretty rough in this story. After they lose their fortune, the man who owns the house they live in convinces one of their daughters to elope with him. Eventually, she returns, and they learn that he had more than one wife. This guy was pretty despicable, and I do not use that word lightly. What he did was, he convinced someone to marry him, then abandoned her. While she is gone, their house burns to the ground, and almost with the two younger sons in it. The vicar ran into the house to pull them out, and is badly burned while carrying them out. They end up having to live in one of their outhouses, and then the man who eloped with their daughter shows up, and demands their yearly rent. Not being able to pay it, obviously, the vicar is sent to prison. While the vicar is in prison, his daughter is kidnapped, and his eldest son, who had enlisted in the army to support the family, comes and challenges the man who abducted his sister to a duel. Not wanting to face him, the man injures his the boy from behind, and the boy is sent to the same prison as his father for trying to duel with the man, seriously injured. When all seems like it could not get worse, their landlord takes their daughter back. He comes to the jail, but it found out the he was the one who kidnapped her. He claimed ownership to the vicar's daughter's fortune, as they were married, but a baronet who was present said that the marriage was not worth anything, as he was already married. In the end, after much debate, the family ended up being awarded some money, their oldest daughter and son being legally married, and they lived happily from then.

Anyways, thank you for taking the time to read this post. Have a nice day!