Educated at Coventry and the Strasbourg Gymnasium, Dobson entered the Board of Trade in the Harbour department in 1856. He gradually rose to the rank of principal and retired in 1901. Around the mid-1860's, Dobson began to write verse and some prose and contributed to Anthony Trollope's St. Paul's Magazine. In 1873, he published his first volume of verse, Vignettes in Rhyme. which was highly successful, running to three editions. In 1876, he published The Prodigals, the first English work to make use of the French triolet ballade. Dobson's second volume, Proverbs in Porcelain appeared in 1877 and drew critical acclaim. After 1885, Dobson concentrated on criticism and biographies which included Henry Fielding (1883), Thomas Bewick (1884), Richard Steele (1886) and Oliver Goldsmith (1888) to name a few. His other works include Old-World Idylls (1883), The Ballad of Beau Brocade (1884), At the Sign of the Lyre (1885), Horace Walpole (1890), Collected Poems (1897), The Paladin of Philanthropy (1899), Carmina Votiva (1901) and William Hogarth (1907). |
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