James Dodsley facts for kids

James Dodsley (1724–1797) was an English bookseller.

Life

Dodsley was born near Mansfield in Nottinghamshire in 1724. He was probably employed in the shop of his prosperous brother, Robert, by whom he was taken into partnership—the firm trading as R. & J. Dodsley in Pall Mall—and whom he eventually succeeded in 1759.

The plan of the tax on receipts was suggested by him to the Rockingham administration in 1782. On 7 June 1787 he lost £2,500 worth of quirestock, burnt in a warehouse. He paid the usual fine instead of serving the office of Sheriff of London and Middlesex in 1788.

He led a secluded life, and some years before his death gave up his shop, dealing wholesale in his own publications. The retail business was taken over by George Nicol. He kept a carriage many years, but studiously wished that his friends should not know it, nor did he ever use it on the eastern side of Temple Bar, according to the Gentleman's Magazine.

Death

He died on 19 February 1797 at his house in Pall Mall in his seventy-fourth year, and was buried in St James's Church, Westminster. His monument was sculpted by John Flaxman RA.

He left the bulk of his fortune, estimated at £70,000, to nephews and nieces.