DODSLEY, ROBERT (1703-1764), English bookseller and miscellaneous writer, was born near Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, 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, taking service as a footman. In 1729 Dodsley pub lished his first work, Servitude, a Poem . . . written by a Foot man, with a preface and postscript ascribed to Daniel Defoe ; 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 called The Toyshop (Covent Garden, 1735).
With the help of his friends—Pope lent him £roo—Dodsley set up as a publisher at the "Tully's Head" in Pall Mall in 1735. One of his first publications was Dr. Johnson's London, for which he gave Io guineas in 1738. He published many of Johnson's works, and he suggested and helped to finance the English Dictionary. Pope also made over to Dodsley his interest in his letters. In 1738 the publication of Paul Whitehead's Manners, voted scandalous by the Lords, led to a short imprisonment. Dodsley also founded several literary periodicals: The Museum (1746-67, 3 vols.); The Preceptor containing a general course of education (1748, 2 vols.), with an introduction by Dr. Johnson; The World 4 vols.) ; and The Annual Register, founded in 1758 with Edmund Burke as editor. Dodsley is, however, best known as the editor of two collections: Select Collection of Old Plays (12 vols., end edition with notes by Isaac Reed, 12 vols., 178o; 4th edition, by W. C. Hazlitt, 1874-76, 15 vols.) ; and A Collection of Poems by Several Hands (1748, 3 vols.), which passed through many editions. In 1737 his King and the Miller of Mansfield, a "dra matic tale" of King Henry II., was produced at Drury Lane; the sequel, Sir John Cockle at Court, a farce, appeared in 1738. In 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; and this was followed by other poems and plays. His tragedy of Cleone (1758) had a long run at Covent Garden, 2,00o copies being sold on the day of publication and it passed through four editions within the year. In 1759 Dodsley retired, leaving the conduct of the business to his brother James with whom he had been many years in partnership. He died at Durham while on a visit to his friend the Rev. Joseph Spence.
Dodsley's poems are reprinted with a memoir in A. Chalmers's Works of English Poets, vol. xv. (181o) . See also Charles Knight, Shadows of the Old Booksellers (1865) pp. 189-216; E. Solly, in The Bibliographer, v. (1884) PP. 57-61; Austin Dobson, "At Tully's Head" in Eighteenth Century Vignettes (2nd series, 1894) ; R. Straus, Robert Dodsley, Poet, Publisher and Playwright (1910) .