The Toy Shop (1735) The King and the Miller of Mansfield (1737)
By Harry M. Solomon and Robert Dodsley
()
Related to The Toy Shop (1735) The King and the Miller of Mansfield (1737)
Related ebooks
The Toy Shop (1735) The King and the Miller of Mansfield (1737) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Collected Poetry of Charles Dickens by Charles Dickens (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAnti-Achitophel (1682): Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWilliam Hogarth: Detailed Paintings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Old Coloured Books Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsShakespeare Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gamester (1753) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Scribleriad, and The Difference Between Verbal and Practical Virtue Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Dickens Dictionary: An A-Z of Britain's Greatest Novelist Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Joseph Andrews: The Complete Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsReynolds Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWilliam Hogarth: 171 Paintings and Drawings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Bundle of Ballads Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBurlesque Plays and Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNotes and Queries, Number 13, January 26, 1850 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFive Plays Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Tragedy of X Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Meaning of Shakespeare, Volume 2 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Salome Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 13, No. 374, June 6, 1829 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Poems and Verses of Charles Dickens Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Pindarick Ode on Painting Addressed to Joshua Reynolds, Esq. Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsComparative Studies in Nursery Rhymes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsYoung's Night Thoughts With Life, Critical Dissertation and Explanatory Notes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Mysterious World of Sherlock Holmes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Roaring Boys: Shakespeare's Rat Pack Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Bundle of Ballads Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Reviews for The Toy Shop (1735) The King and the Miller of Mansfield (1737)
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
The Toy Shop (1735) The King and the Miller of Mansfield (1737) - Harry M. Solomon
The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Toy Shop (1735) The King and the Miller
of Mansfield (1737), by Robert Dodsley
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: The Toy Shop (1735) The King and the Miller of Mansfield (1737)
Author: Robert Dodsley
Editor: Harry M. Solomon
Release Date: June 21, 2011 [EBook #36491]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TOY SHOP ***
Produced by Chris Curnow, Joseph Cooper and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
The Augustan Reprint Society
THE
TOY-SHOP
(1735)
THE
KING
AND THE
MILLER
OF MANSFIELD
(1737)
ROBERT DODSLEY
Introduction by
HARRY M. SOLOMON
Publication Number 218-219
WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK MEMORIAL LIBRARY
University of California, Los Angeles
1983
GENERAL EDITOR
David Stuart Rodes, University of California, Los Angeles
EDITORS
Charles L. Batten, University of California, Los Angeles
George Robert Guffey, University of California, Los Angeles
Maximillian E. Novak, University of California, Los Angeles
Nancy M. Shea, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
Thomas Wright, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
ADVISORY EDITORS
Ralph Cohen, University of Virginia
William E. Conway, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
Vinton A. Dearing, University of California, Los Angeles
Phillip Harth, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Louis A. Landa, Princeton University
Earl Miner, Princeton University
James Sutherland, University College, London
Norman J. W. Thrower, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
Robert Vosper, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
John M. Wallace, University of Chicago
PUBLICATIONS MANAGER
Nancy M. Shea, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
CORRESPONDING SECRETARY
Beverly J. Onley, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
Frances Miriam Reed, University of California, Los Angeles
INTRODUCTION
The career of Robert Dodsley (1703-1764), or Doddy
as Samuel Johnson affectionately called him, resembles nothing so much as the rise of Francis Goodchild in Hogarth's Industry and Idleness (1747) series. Like Goodchild, Dodsley began as a humble apprentice and, through energy, ingenuity, and laudable ambition, grew prosperous and gained the esteem of all London. Today Dodsley is remembered as the most important publisher of his period, a man who numbered among his authors Pope, Young, Akenside, Gray, Johnson, Burke, Shenstone, and Sterne. His long-labored Collection of Poems (1748) rescued many of his contemporaries' works from pamphlet obscurity and even now provides both the best and the most representative introduction to mid-eighteenth-century English poetry. His twelve-volume A Select Collection of Old Plays (1744) made the lesser Elizabethan dramatists, long out of print, available again.
It is one of the minor ironies of literary history that the man who did so much to insure the survival of the poems and plays of others has had his own almost entirely forgotten. For Dodsley was not always a bookseller. When he escaped his country apprenticeship and fled to London to work as a footman, Dodsley had his heart set on literary distinction; and it was first as poet and later as playwright that he came to the attention of the Town. Although a few of his poems are as ingratiating as Dodsley himself is reported to have been, most are now aesthetically irretrievable. His dramas, in contrast, remain interesting. Two of the best—The Toy-Shop (1735) and The King and the Miller of Mansfield (1737)—were much more popular than his earlier poems and for a time made him seem the equal of fellow dramatist Henry Fielding. So great was the vogue of these two works that Dodsley has been described as the principal developer of the sentimental or moralizing afterpiece.[1] Both works are short afterpieces intended to complement or contrast with the full-length play on the day's bill and both moralize conspicuously; the two plays could, however, hardly be more different in tone and technique.
The Toy-Shop grew out of Dodsley's admiration of and consequent desire to emulate the witty raillery of Augustan satire. When he sent Pope his newly minted collected poems, A Muse in Livery (1732), Dodsley also included an orphan muse in the packet. In February of 1733 Pope politely responded that he liked the play and would encourage John Rich to produce it, but that he doubted whether it had sufficient action to engage an audience. Dodsley apparently did all he could to strengthen his acquaintance with Pope, including publishing a laudatory Epistle to Mr. Pope, Occasion'd by His Essay on Man in 1734; and the following February when Rich finally produced The Toy-Shop at Covent Garden, some thought that Pope was the author and Dodsley's alleged authorship a diversion. Understandably, Dodsley was delighted to have his play even momentarily mistaken for the work of Alexander Pope.
The Toy-Shop was enormously popular. This little Performance, without any Theatrical Merit whatsoever,
the Prompter wrote on 18 February, received the loudest Applauses that I have heard this long while, only on Account of its General and well-Adapted Satire on the Follies of Mankind.
[2] Dodsley's afterpiece was performed thirty-four times during the 1735 season. In print it was even more in demand. For his benefit performance on 6 February, Dodsley advertised that Books of the Toy-Shop will be sold in the House.
[3] There were at least six legitimate editions of the piece within the year. It was pirated, translated into French, and