Books published by publisher Dodo Press

Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis, better known as C. J. Dennis, (1876-1938) was an Australian poet famous for his humorous poems, especially The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke, published in the early 20th century. At the age of 19 he was employed as a solicitor's clerk. It was while he was working in this job that, like banker's clerk Banjo Paterson before him, his first poem was published. He later went on to publish in The Bulletin, as Paterson and Henry Lawson had also done. The three are often considered Australia's three most famous poets; though Dennis's work is less well known today, his 1916 publication of The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke sold 65,000 copies in its first year, and by 1917 he was the most prosperous poet in Australian history. The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke and numerous spin-offs published subsequently related the everyday adventures of the title character Bill, his girl Doreen, his friend Ginger Mick, and other characters. The poems are written in dialect, and present The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke as a typical larrikin.

Ann Sophia Stephens (1813-1886), who also wrote under the pseudonym Jonathan Slick, was an American novelist. Born in Derby, Connecticut, she was an author of dime novels and is credited as the progenitor of that genre. Her work was also serialized in Godey's Lady's Book, The Ladies' Companion, and Graham's Magazine. The term "dime novel" originated with Stephens's Malaeska: The Indian Wife of the White Hunter, printed in the first book in Beadle & Adams Beadle's Dime Novels series, dated June 9, 1860. The novel was a reprint of Stephens's earlier serial that appeared in The Ladies' Companion magazine in February, March, and April of 1839. Later, the Grolier Club listed Malaeska as the most influential book of 1860. Her other works include: High Life in New York (1843), Alice Copley: A Tale of Queen Mary's Time (1844), The Diamond Necklace and Other Tales (1846), Fashion and Famine (1854), The Old Homestead (1855), The Rejected Wife (1863) and A Noble Woman (1871).

John Newbery (1713-1767) was a British publisher of books who first made children's literature a sustainable and profitable part of the literary market. He also supported and published the works of Christopher Smart, Oliver Goldsmith and Samuel Johnson. In honour of his achievements in children's publishing, the Newbery Medal was named after him. By 1740 he had started publishing books in Reading, Berkshire; his first two publications were an edition of Richard Allestree's The Whole Duty of Man and Miscellaneous Works Serious and Humerous in Verse and Prose. In 1743, Newbery left Reading, putting his stepson John Carnan in charge of his business there, and established a shop in London. The first book he published there was A Little Pretty Pocket-Book in 1744. Scholars have speculated that Oliver Goldsmith or Giles and Griffith Jones wrote one of Newbery's best-selling stories, The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes. This was Newbery's most popular book, going through 29 editions between 1765 and 1800. Newbery also published a series of books written by "Tom Telescope" that were wildly popular, going through seven editions between 1761 and 1787 alone.

Walter Crane (1845-1915) was an English artist. Born in Liverpool, he was part of the Arts and Crafts movement. He produced paintings, illustrations, children's books, ceramic tiles and other decorative arts. In 1862 his picture The Lady of Shalott was exhibited at the Royal Academy, but the Academy steadily refused his maturer work; and after the opening of the Grosvenor Gallery in 1877 he ceased to send pictures to Burlington House. In 1864 he began to illustrate a series of sixpenny toy-books of nursery rhymes in three colours for Edmund Evans. He was allowed more freedom in a series beginning with The Frog Prince (1874) which showed markedly the influence of Japanese art, and of a long visit to Italy following his marriage in 1871. From the early 1880s, Crane was closely associated with the Socialist movement. He provided the weekly cartoons for the Socialist Organs Justice, The Commonweal and The Clarion. One of his last major works would be his Lunettes at the Royal West of England Academy which were painted in 1913.

James Lewis Thomas Chalmbers Spence (1874-1955) was a Scottish journalist, whose efforts as a compiler of Scottish folklore have proved more durable than his efforts as a poet and occult scholar. After graduating from Edinburgh University he pursued a career in journalism. In 1899 he married Helen Bruce. He was an editor at The Scotsman 1899-1906, editor of The Edinburgh Magazine for a year, 1904-05, then an editor at The British Weekly, 1906-09. In this time his interest was sparked in the myth and folklore of Mexico and Central America, resulting in his popularisation of the Mayan Popul Vuh, the sacred book of the Quiche Mayas (1908). He compiled A Dictionary of Mythology (1910 and numerous additional volumes). He wrote about Brythonic rites and traditions in The Mysteries of Britain (1905). His 1940 book Occult Causes of the Present War seems to have been the first book in the field of Nazi occultism. He also wrote poetry, collected in 1953.

Wilhelm Hauff (1802-1827) was a German poet and novelist. Considering his brief life, he was an extraordinarily prolific writer. The freshness and originality of his talent, his inventiveness, and his genial humour have won him a high place among the southern German prose writers of the early nineteenth century. In 1820, he began to study at the University of Tübingen. On leaving the university, he became tutor to the children of the famous Württemberg minister of war, General Baron Ernst Eugen von Hugel (1774-1849) and for them wrote his Marchen (fairy tales), which he published in his Marchen Almanach auf das Jahr 1826 (Fairytale Almanac of 1826). Inspired by Sir Walter Scott’s novels, Hauff wrote the historical romance Lichtenstein: Romantische Sage aus der wuerttembergischen Geschichte (Lichtenstein: Romantic Saga from the History of Württemberg) (1826), which acquired great popularity in Germany and especially in Swabia. Other works include: Der Mann im Mond (The Man in the Moon) (1825), Mitteilungen aus den Memoiren des Satan (Memoirs of Beelzebub) (1826) and Phantasien im Bremer Ratskeller (The Wine-Ghosts of Bremen) (1827).

Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell (1857-1941), also known as B-P, was a lieutenant-general in the British Army, writer, and founder of the Scout Movement. After having been educated at Charterhouse School, Baden-Powell served in the British Army from 1876 until 1910 in India and Africa. In 1899, during the Second Boer War in South Africa, Baden- Powell successfully defended the city in the Siege of Mafeking. Several of his military books, written for military reconnaissance and scout training in his African years, were also read by boys. Based on those earlier books, he wrote Scouting for Boys, published in 1908 by Pearson, for youth readership. During writing, he tested his ideas through a camping trip on Brownsea Island that began on 1 August 1907, which is now seen as the beginning of Scouting.

George Alfred Henty (1832-1902), referred to as G. A. Henty, was a prolific English novelist, special correspondent, and Imperialist born in Trumpington, England. He is best known for his historical adventure stories that were popular in the late 19th century. His works include Out on the Pampas (1871), The Young Buglers (1880), With Clive in India (1884) and Wulf the Saxon (1895). He attended Westminster School, London and later Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he was a keen sportsman. Henty once related in an interview how his storytelling skills grew out of tales told after dinner to his children. He wrote his first children's book, Out on the Pampas in 1868, naming the book's main characters after his children. While most of the 122 books he wrote were for children, he also wrote adult novels, non-fiction such as The March to Magdala (1868) and Those Other Animals (1891), short stories for the likes of The Boy's Own Paper and edited the Union Jack, a weekly boys magazine.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was an English poet and playwright, now widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "The Bard"). His surviving works consist of 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Between 1585 and 1592 he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part owner of the playing company the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. He produced most of his known work between 1590 and 1613. His early plays were mainly comedies and histories, genres he raised to the peak of sophistication and artistry by the end of the sixteenth century. Next he wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608, producing plays, such as Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth, considered some of the finest in the English language. In his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies and collaborated with other playwrights.