The illegitimate son of Dr. William Oldys, chancellor of Lincoln, Oldys lost much of his patrimony in the South Sea Bubble, and moved to Yorkshire where he lived with the Earl of Malton. In 1738 he was appointed secretary to Edward Harley, second earl of Oxford, whose library he catalogued with Samuel Johnson. After the death of his patron Oldys contributed to many scholarly projects, notably the Biographia Britannica (1747-60). In 1751 he was imprisoned for debt; in 1755 he was appointed Norroy king-at-arms by the duke of Norfolk.
TEXT RECORDS:
1748An Historical Essay on the Life and Writings of Michael Drayton.
1750 ca.[Notes for a Biography of Edmund Spenser.]
1758Some Account of the Life and Writings of Edmund Spenser.
1763Biographia Britannica: Edmund Spenser.
PUBLICATIONS:
A dissertation upon pamphlets and the undertaking of Phoenix britannicus to revive the most excellent of them. 1731.
Life of Sir Walter Raleigh in Raleigh, History of the World. 2 vols, 1736.
The British librarian. 1737.
The Muses library [Elizabeth Cooper, with Oldys]. 1741.
Memoirs of Mrs Anne Oldfield [attributed to Oldys]. 1741.
The Harleian miscellany: or a collection of scarce, curious and entertaining tracts and pamphlets [ed. Oldys]. 8 vols, 1744-46.
Biographia Britannica [major contributor]. 5 vols, 1747-60.
Some account of the life and writings of Charles Cotton in Izaac Walton, Compleat Angler. 1760.
Diary, ed. J. Yeowell. 1862.
PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:
English
Anglican
Gray's Inn
Inns of Court
secretary
editor
antiquary
poet
Universal Spectator
British Librarian
Rev. Thomas Birch
John Campbell
Elizabeth Cooper
Thomas Hayward
Samuel Johnson
Bp. Thomas Percy
Rev. William Thompson
REFERENCE:
DNB; NCBEL.
Thomas Davies, A Catalogue of the Library of the late William Oldys (1762); "Biographical Anecdotes of William Oldys" Gentleman's Magazine 84 (March-April 1784) 161-64, 260; "William Oldys, Esq." European Magazine 30 (November 1796) 315-16 [portrait]; Alexander Chalmers, General Biographical Dictionary (1812-17); Robert Watt, Bibliotheca Britannica (1824); Isaac D'Israeli, Curiosities of Literature 6 (1834); Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1858-71; 1882); James Yeowell, "Memoirs of Oldys" Notes and Queries S3 1 (4 January-1 February 1862); Moulton, Library of Literary Criticism (1901-05); Lawrence Lipking, "The Curiosity of William Oldys: An Approach to the Development of English Literary History" Philological Quarterly 46 (1967) 285-407; Thomas Kaminski, "Johnson and Oldys as Bibliographers: An Introduction to the Harleian Catalogue" Philological Quarterly 60 (1981) 439-53.
COMMENTARY RECORDS
for William Oldys:
BIOGRAPHY RECORDS
for William Oldys:
AUTHOR AS CRITIC:
(commentary records)
AUTHOR AS CRITIC:
(biography records)
1. | 1748 Michael Drayton: William Oldys, Essay on the Life and Writings of Michael Drayton, in Drayton, Works (1748) 3-12. |
2. | 1750 Thomas Shadwell: William Oldys, ca. 1750; in Censura Literaria 1 (1805) 181-82n. |