History of the Annual Register

The Annual Register was founded in 1758 by the publisher Robert Dodsley (1703-1764). On April 24th, 1758, Dodsley and Edmund Burke (1729-1797) signed a contract to the effect that Burke would write, edit and collect the material for the Register, for 1758, to be completed and submitted for printing by Lady Day, 1759. Burke edited the Annual Register for thirty-two years. The Annual Register is still in print, and has been published for 243 consecutive years.

Burke is best known as a parliamentarian and political writer. Born in Ireland, he was a proponent of the movement for independence in America, yet staunchly opposed the Revolution in France. One of his best known works is Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) (which was published by James Dodsley, Robert’s brother, and sold eighteen thousand copies in the first year), in which he is strongly critical of the Revolution. Burke saw the Revolution as a violent movement against authority, as opposed to a movement towards democracy. As there was some enthusiasm for the Revolution in England, this work provoked many responses, the most famous of which is Thomas Paine’s The Rights of Man (1791-92).

Burke’s connection with Dodsley can be seen to have bolstered his career. After dropping out of Middle Temple, the allowance Burke received from his father stopped, and Burke turned to writing. The second edition of his work Vindication of Natural Society: A View of the Miseries and Evils arising to Mankind from Every Species of Artificial Society (1756) was published by Dodsley, who also published Burke’s A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful (1757). He went on to become the private secretary of the Marquis of Rockingham, who was the First Lord of the Treasury. From 1765 to 1794 he was an MP in the British House of Commons, where he made a great many persuasive speeches, some of which were published, including: American Taxation (1774), Conciliation with America (1775), and Fox's East India Bill (1783).

Dodsley was an important printer in the eighteenth century. It was at Dodsley’s suggestion that Samuel Johnson was inspired to write a dictionary. Aside from Johnson, Dodsley either published or was connected with many other great thinkers and writers: Alexander Pope, Henry Fielding, David Garrick, Horace Walpole, Laurence Sterne, William Shenstone, Oliver Goldsmith and Voltaire to name a few. He also had close working relationships with John Baskerville and the Irish bookseller and printer, George Faulkner.

In addition to being a bookseller and printer, Dodsley was a playright and poet. His first poem, Servitude (1729) was edited and seen through to publication by Daniel Defoe. It was the publication of this poem that led to Dodsley’s introduction to Alexander Pope, which connected Dodsley to the literary world of England. Through his connection to Pope, Dodsley’s first play The Toy Shop was staged at John Rich’s new theatre in Covent Garden. The Toy Shop was enormously successful, and went through many editions and translations. It was the success of this play which enabled Dodsley to set up his bookseller’s shop, Tully’s Head.

The Annual Register will be of great interest to scholars from many different areas of study. It chiefly offers military, political and economic histories, but contains as well a wide array of articles on diverse topics. The Annual Register presents sections on “Natural History”, “Characters”, “Useful Projects”, “Antiquities”, “Essays”, “Poetry” and “Account of Books”. There are book reviews, excerpts of books, biographical memoirs, trial and law cases, parliamentary reports. There is statistical information such as births, deaths, marriages, and records of the public accounts for each year. The reader can follow the War of Independence in America, the Revolution in France, as well as events in Canada and other colonies. There are articles of a scientific nature, others that give accounts of horrific crimes, and still others that seem to present material purely for amusement or shock.
The years covered by the Annual Register and the broad scope of the material represent a significant resource for scholars, and have the potential to inform a wide range of research.

Bibliography

Chapman, Gerald W. Edmund Burke: The Practical Imagination. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1967.
Cruise O’Brien, Conor. The Great Melody: A Thematic Biography and Anthology of Edmund Burke. University of Chicago Press:Chicago,1992.
Solomon, Harry M. The Rise of Robert Dodsley: Creating the New Age of Print. Southern Illinois University Press: Carbondale and Edwardsville,1996.
Tierney, James E. The Correspondence of Robert Dodsley: 1733-1764. Cambridge University Press:Cambridge, 1988.

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