Biography
Robert Dodsley wrote both Servitude (1729) and The Muse in Livery (1732) while working for the Hon. Mrs. Lowther. Later he devised several plays, The Toyshop (1735), The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green (1741), and Cleone (1758). His chief fame comes from publishing and selling, at his shop the Tully's Head in Pall Mall, literature by Mark Akenside, Thomas Gray, Oliver Goldsmith, Samuel Johnson, Alexander Pope, Edward Young, and others. Dodsley's A Collection of Poems, by Several Hands, which came out from 1748 to 1758, helped define the period's taste. Towards the end of his life, Dodsley co-founded The Annual Register with Edmund Burke.
- A Collection of Poems by Several Hands. London: Robert Dodsley, 1748. B-10/9141 Fisher Rare Book Library
- The Correspondence of Robert Dodsley, 1733-1764, ed. James E. Tierney (Cambridge, England, and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Z 325 D68A4 Robarts Library
- Dodsley, Robert. A Muse in Livery: or, The Footman's Miscellany (London: for the Author, 1732). 992.K.24 British Library
- --. Public Virtue; a Poem in Three Books, I. Agriculture. II. Commerce. III. Arts. London: R. and J. Dodsley, 1753. D-10/2537 Fisher Rare Book Library
- --. Servitude: a Poem (London: printed for T. Worrall, 1729).
- --. Trifles (London: Tully, 1745). B-10 6923 Fisher Rare Book Library
- Solomon, Harry M. The Rise of Robert Dodsley: Creating the New Age of Print (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1996). Z 325 D68S64 Robarts Library
- Straus, Ralph. Robert Dodsley, Poet, Publisher & Playwright (London: J. Lane, 1910). PR 3409 .D7Z7 Robarts Library
