Profits and fame from his early literary works enabled Dodsley to establish himself with the help of his friends (Alexander Pope lent him £100) as a bookseller at the sign of Tully's Head in Pall Mall, London, in 1735.

In 1738, the publication of Paul Whitehead's Manners was voted scandalous by the House of Lords and led to Dodsley's imprisonment for a brief period.

In 1729, Dodsley published his first work, Servitude: a Poem written by a Footman, with a preface and postscript ascribed to Daniel Defoe; and a collection of short poems, A Muse in Livery, or the Footman's Miscellany, was published by subscription in 1732, Dodsley's patrons comprising many persons of high rank.

This was followed by a satirical farce called The Toy-Shop (Covent Garden, 1735), in which the toymaker indulges in moral observations on his wares, a hint which was probably taken from Thomas Randolph's Conceited Pedlar.

was ‘to preserve to the public those poetical performances, which seemed to merit a longer remembrance than what would probably be secured to them by the Manner wherein they were originally published’ (Collection of Poems, 1748, vol.

This was followed by The Triumph of Peace, a Masque occasioned by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1749); his three-canto blank verse georgic on Agriculture (1753), originally intended as part of a longer work to be titled Public Virtue; The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green (acted at Drury Lane 1739, printed 1741); and an ode, Melpomene (1751).

His tragedy of Cleone (1758) had a long run at Covent Garden, 2000 copies being sold on the day of publication, and it passed through four editions within the year.