SOURCE: Solomon, Harry M. “Apology: ‘Dodsley's life should be written,’” and “Creating Canons: 1741-1748.” In The Rise of Robert Dodsley: Creating the New Age of Print, pp. 1-6; 88-117. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1996.

In the first essay which follows, Solomon argues that a new biography of Dodsley is warranted, one that does not treat the publisher as a secondary literary figure to the authors he published. In the second, Solomon recounts Dodsley's many literary achievements as a poet, dramatist, journalist, editor, bookseller, and patron of the arts.

Apology: “dodsley’s Life Should Be Written”

James Boswell reports of his and Samuel Johnson's visit in March 1776 with Thomas Warton, in Warton's chambers in Trinity College, Oxford: “I said Mr. Robert Dodsley's life should be written, as he had been so much connected with the wits of his time, and by his literary merit had raised himself from the...