Robert Dodsley
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Robert Dodsley (13 February 1703 – 23 September 1764) was an English bookseller, publisher, poet, playwright, and miscellaneous writer.


Life

Dodsley was born near
Mansfield Mansfield is a market town and the administrative centre of the Mansfield District in Nottinghamshire, England. It is the largest town in the wider Mansfield Urban Area and the second largest settlement in Nottinghamshire (following the city ...
,
Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated ''Notts.'') is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. The county is bordered by South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. Th ...
, where his father was master of the free school. He is said to have been apprenticed to a stocking-weaver in Mansfield, from whom he ran away, going into service as a footman. Profits and fame from his early literary works enabled Dodsley to establish himself with the help of his friends (
Alexander Pope Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 Old Style and New Style dates, O.S. – 30 May 1744) was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early ...
lent him £100) as a bookseller at the sign of Tully's Head in
Pall Mall, London Pall Mall is a street in the St James's area of the City of Westminster, Central London. It connects St James's Street to Trafalgar Square and is a section of the regional A4 road (England), A4 road. The street's name is derived f ...
, in 1735. He soon became one of the foremost publishers of the day. One of his first publications was
Samuel Johnson Samuel Johnson ( – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, literary critic, sermonist, biographer, editor, and lexicographer. The ''Oxford ...
's ''London'' for which he paid ten
guineas The guinea (; commonly abbreviated gn., or gns. in plural) was a coin, minted in Great Britain between 1663 and 1814, that contained approximately one-quarter of an ounce of gold. The name came from the Guinea region in West Africa, from where m ...
in 1738. He published many of Johnson's works, and he suggested and helped to finance Johnson's ''
Dictionary A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged Alphabetical order, alphabetically (or by Semitic root, consonantal root for Semitic languages or radical-and-stroke sorting, radical an ...
''. Pope also made over to Dodsley his interest in his letters. In 1738, the publication of Paul Whitehead's ''Manners'' was voted scandalous by the
House of Lords The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the lower house, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. One of the oldest ext ...
and led to Dodsley's imprisonment for a brief period. Dodsley published for Edward Young and Mark Akenside, and in 1751 brought out
Thomas Gray Thomas Gray (26 December 1716 – 30 July 1771) was an English poet, letter-writer, and classics, classical scholar at Cambridge University, being a fellow first of Peterhouse then of Pembroke College, Cambridge, Pembroke College. He is widely ...
's ''Elegy''. He was also publisher to the Rev. Joseph Spence and Joseph Warton, and collaborated with John Baskerville, the innovative Birmingham printer. In 1759, Dodsley retired, leaving the conduct of the business to his brother James, with whom he had been in partnership for many years. He died and was buried at Durham while he was on a visit to his friend Joseph Spence.


Works

In 1729, Dodsley published his first work, ''Servitude: a Poem written by a Footman'', with a preface and postscript ascribed to
Daniel Defoe Daniel Defoe (; born Daniel Foe; 1660 – 24 April 1731) was an English writer, merchant and spy. He is most famous for his novel ''Robinson Crusoe'', published in 1719, which is claimed to be second only to the Bible in its number of translati ...
; and a collection of short poems, ''A Muse in Livery, or the Footman's Miscellany'', was published by subscription in 1732, Dodsley's patrons comprising many persons of high rank. This was followed by a satirical
farce Farce is a comedy that seeks to entertain an audience through situations that are highly exaggerated, extravagant, ridiculous, absurd, and improbable. Farce is also characterized by heavy use of physical comedy, physical humor; the use of delibe ...
called ''The Toy-Shop'' (
Covent Garden Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist sit ...
, 1735), in which the toymaker indulges in moral observations on his wares, a hint which was probably taken from Thomas Randolph's ''Conceited Pedlar''. In 1737 his ''King and the Miller of Mansfield'', a "dramatic tale" of King Henry II, was produced at
Drury Lane Drury Lane is a street on the boundary between the Covent Garden and Holborn areas of London, running between Aldwych and High Holborn. The northern part is in the borough of London Borough of Camden, Camden and the southern part in the City o ...
, and received with much applause; the sequel, ''Sir John Cockle at Court'', a farce, appeared in 1738. Dodsley displayed his egalitarian leanings with the anonymous ''The Chronicle of the Kings of England by "Nathan ben Saddi"'' (1740), rewriting English history in the style of the King James Version of the Pentateuch. ''The Oeconomy of Human Life'' appeared in 1750, a collection of moral precepts attributed to ancient authors in India and China, set out in a King James Version style of English attributed to an anonymous translator. Dodsley is, however, best known as the editor of two collections, one of plays, and one of poems. The first was the ''Select Collection of Old Plays'' (12 vols., 1744;A Select Collection of Old Plays (Robert Dodsley) - Book Series List
publishinghistory.com. Retrieved 5 November 2021. 2nd edition with notes by Isaac Reed, 12 vols., 1780; 4th edition, by William Carew Hazlitt, 1874–1876, 15 vols). Dodsley's collection of poems, ''A collection of Poems by Several Hands'' (1748, 3 vols.) was ‘to preserve to the public those poetical performances, which seemed to merit a longer remembrance than what would probably be secured to them by the Manner wherein they were originally published’ (Collection of Poems, 1748, vol. 1.iii–iv). Given his literary circle, he was able to fill three volumes of poetry by the time of the first edition on 15 January 1748. By March 1755 it had entered four editions and he added a fourth volume, and in 1758 volumes five and six, hence the change in titles. In 1745 he published a collection of his dramatic works, and some poems which had been issued separately in one volume under the modest title of ''Trifles''. This was followed by ''The Triumph of Peace, a Masque occasioned by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle'' (1749); his three-canto
blank verse Blank verse is poetry written with regular metre (poetry), metrical but rhyme, unrhymed lines, usually in iambic pentameter. It has been described as "probably the most common and influential form that English poetry has taken since the 16th cen ...
georgic on ''Agriculture'' (1753), originally intended as part of a longer work to be titled ''Public Virtue''; ''The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green'' (acted at Drury Lane 1739, printed 1741); and an ode, ''Melpomene'' (1751). His tragedy of '' Cleone'' (1758) had a long run at Covent Garden, 2000 copies being sold on the day of publication, and it passed through four editions within the year. Dodsley also founded several literary periodicals: ''The Museum'' (1746–1767, 3 vols.); ''The Preceptor'' containing a general course of education (1748, 2 vols.), with an introduction by Dr Johnson; ''The World'' (1753–1756, 4 vols.); and ''The Annual Register'', founded in 1758 with
Edmund Burke Edmund Burke (; 12 January ew Style, NS1729 – 9 July 1797) was an Anglo-Irish Politician, statesman, journalist, writer, literary critic, philosopher, and parliamentary orator who is regarded as the founder of the Social philosophy, soc ...
as editor. To these various works,
Horace Walpole Horatio Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford (; 24 September 1717 – 2 March 1797), better known as Horace Walpole, was an English Whig politician, writer, historian and antiquarian. He had Strawberry Hill House built in Twickenham, southwest London ...
, Akenside, Soame Jenyns, Lord Lyttelton, Lord Chesterfield, Burke and others were contributors. He produced and published more successful works towards the end of his life. ''The Select Fables of Esop'' (1761), which remained in print in various editions for many decades, for which he and some of his friends wrote additional fables. The ''Works of William Shenstone'' (3 vols., 1764–1769) was brought out as a memorial after Shenstone's sudden death, and was very selectively edited so as to show that writer at his best.


List of selected works

* 12 Volumes
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** 12 Volumes
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** 12 Volumes
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** 15 Volumes
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* * 3 Volumes. *
V1V2V3V4
*
V1V2V3V4V5V6


See also

* Book trade in the United Kingdom * List of 18th-century British working-class writers


References


Bibliography

* * * Knight, Charles. ''Shadows of the Old Booksellers.'' London: Bell and Daldy, 1865. * "At Tully's Head." In ''Eighteenth Century Vignettes'', 2nd series. Edited by Austin Dobson. London: Chatto and Windus, 1907. * Banham, Martin. ''The Cambridge Guide to the Theatre''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. * Dickens, Charles. "The Muse in Livery" in "Household Words, A Weekly Journal" Vol. 11, No. 13, Whole No. 266, 1855 * Hartnoll, Phyllis. ''The Oxford Companion to the Theatre''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983. * Solomon, Harry M. ''The Rise of Robert Dodsley: Creating the New Age of Print.'' Carbondale, Ill.: Southern Illinois University Press, 1996.


External links


Robert Dodsley
at th
Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive (ECPA)
* * *
''The King and the Miller of Mansfield'' (1737)
at the
Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dodsley, Robert 1703 births 1764 deaths English dramatists and playwrights English booksellers Publishers (people) from London People from Mansfield Bookshops in London 18th-century English businesspeople English male dramatists and playwrights English male poets