Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Dilly, Charles
DILLY, CHARLES (1739–1807), bookseller, was born 22 May 1739 at Southill in Bedfordshire, of a good yeoman family which had been settled in that county for a couple of centuries. After making a short trip to America, he returned to London, his elder brother, Edward [q. v.], took him into partnership, and the business was carried on under their joint names. They published Boswell's ‘Corsica,’ Chesterfield's ‘Miscellaneous Works,’ and many other standard books. Being staunch dissenters they naturally dealt much in the divinity of that school. In their dealings with authors they were liberal, and Charles in particular was known for his kindness to young aspirants. They were extremely hospitable, and gave excellent dinners described in the memoirs of the period. Johnson was frequently their guest, and as such had his famous meeting with Wilkes, 15 May 1776, with whom he dined a second time, 8 May 1781, at the same table (Boswell, Life, iii. 67–79, iv. 101–7). Johnson, Goldsmith, Boswell, Wilkes, Cumberland, Knox, Reed, Parr, Rogers, Hoole, Priestley, Thomson, and Sutton Sharpe were among those frequently to be found at the Poultry dinners. On the death of his brother Edward in 1779, Charles Dilly continued the business alone, and kept up the hospitality for which the two had been famous. He published Boswell's ‘Tour to the Hebrides’ in 1780, the first edition of the ‘Life of Johnson’ in 1791, the second in 1793, and the third in 1799. Boswell wrote an ‘Horatian Ode’ to him (Nichols, Illustrations, ii. 664). He was invited to become an alderman for the ward of Cheap in 1782, but retired in favour of Boydell. A plea of nonconformity excused him from the office of sheriff. The extent and variety of his publications are shown in the contents of ‘a catalogue of books printed for and sold by Charles Dilly,’ 32 pp. 12mo, issued in 1787. In 1803 he was master of the Stationers' Company. After a prosperous career of more than forty years he retired in favour of Joseph Mawman, who had been in business in York. He continued his literary dinner-parties at his new house in Brunswick Row, Queen Square, and lived here a few years before his death, which took place at Ramsgate, while on a visit to Cumberland, on 4 May 1807. He was buried 12 May, in the cemetery of St. George the Martyr, Queen Square. He left a fortune of nearly 60,000l.
Dilly, John (1731–1806), the eldest of the three brothers, Boswell's ‘Squire Dilly,’ had no direct connection with the business, and lived upon the family property at Southill, where he was visited on a well-known occasion by Johnson and Boswell, in June 1781 (Life of Johnson, iv. 118–32; other references to him, i. 260, ii. 247, iii. 396). He was high sheriff in 1783, and died 18 March 1806, aged 75, at Clophill in Bedfordshire, a kind of model farm purchased by Charles a few years before. He, his two brothers, and an only sister were unmarried. Martha, the sister, died 22 Jan. 1803, in her sixty-second year. A writer in ‘Notes and Queries’ (5th ser. xi. 29) says that portraits of the Dillys are in existence.
[Gent. Mag. vol. lxxvii. pt. i. pp. 478–80; Boswell's Life of Johnson (G. Birkbeck Hill), 6 vols. numerous references; Letters of Boswell to Temple, 1857; Boswelliana, ed. by Dr. Ch. Rogers, 1874; Memoirs of Richard Cumberland, ii. 200, 226; Forster's Life of Goldsmith, 2nd ed. 1854, i. 299, ii. 214, 416; Memoirs of J. C. Lettsom; 1817, i. 151, 152; Nichols's Illustrations, ii. 664, 672, v. 777; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. iii. 190–2, 756; W. Granger's New Wonderful Museum, vi. 3133; W. Dyce's Porsoniana in Recollections of S. Rogers, 1856, pp. 318–19; P. W. Clayden's Early Life of Rogers, 1887, 242, 243, 268; Timperley's Encyclopædia, pp. 745, 830.]