Dodsley, Robert

Dodsley, Robert, 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.