23 September 2010

Printer of the Century


Today in 1764, Robert Dodsley - famed printer, miscellaneous writer - died in Durham. His well-known editions include Johnson's Rasselas, Gray's Elegy, and The Annual Register with Edmund Burke. He oversaw some of the publication of Tristram Shandy; he retired the same year (1759) and handed over his Tully's Head, Pall Mall shop to his brother James.

Portrait above: attributed to Edward Alcock, 1760 (NPG London).

Seen below is the frontispiece to Volume I of Tristram Shandy, complete with woodcut by Hogarth showing Trim reading the sermon, "The Abuses of Conscience Considered," to Uncle Toby and Walter. Trim's body follows Hogarth's "line of beauty" - the serpentine. This particular edition is a reprint from 1782, but clearly printed for "J.Dodsley" in London.



See: Solomon, Harry S. The Rise of Robert Dodsley (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University, 1996). Online.

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