Dodsley, Robert
Related Category: English Literature, 1500 to 1799: Biographies
1703–64, English publisher and author. He wrote occasional verses, and also several plays, including
The King and the Miller of Mansfield (1737); a ballad opera,
The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green (1741); and the tragedy
Cleone (1758). He is best known, however, as the publisher of works by Pope, Johnson, Gray, and Goldsmith and as the editor of
A Select Collection of Old Plays (12 vol., 1744) and
A Collection of Poems by Several Hands (6 vol., 1748–58). He founded with Burke the
Annual Register (1758), which still exists.