Joseph Cradock (1742–1826) was a writer from Leicester. Upon moving to London, he became friendly with David Garrick and was well known to the literary set as an avid theatregoer. He was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1768 and assisted Garrick in the preparations for the Shakespeare Jubilee in 1769. He wrote a tragedy called Zobeide based on Voltaire's Les Scythes which was first performed on 11 December 1771 at Covent Garden. It had a further ten performances that season, ensuring that Cradock benefited from three author nights.

As the letter below shows, Goldsmith supplied the prologue to Zobeide, probably at the behest of one or both of the actors Richard and Mary Ann Yates. Cradock gave Mary Ann Yates, who played the eponymous heroine, the profit from the ninth night (￡59 16s), presumably for her success in the role but perhaps also acknowledging her part in securing Goldsmith's prologue, which added to the new play's metropolitan appeal, as the reviews testify. The Middlesex Journal (12–14 December 1771) reported: ‘Upon the whole, there is merit in the Prologue, and the town was too just to withhold the tribute of approbation’, and the Critical Review (December 1771) went as far as to say that the Prologue and Epilogue (the latter supplied by Arthur Murphy) were ‘not excelled by many on the English stage’.

Cradock's literary output was not prodigious but there are some efforts of note. A pamphlet, The Life of John Wilkes, Esq., in the Manner of Plutarch (1773), inspired a Wilkesite mob to smash his windows. He later published another play and a novel but is best remembered for his four-volume Literary and Miscellaneous Memoirs (1826–8), which holds a wealth of anecdotal information about London’s literary life.

The copy-text is Cradock's Literary and Miscellaneous Memoirs, where it was first published in 1826. It was addressed ‘For the Rt. Hon. Lord Clare, (Mr Cradock,) Gosfield, Essex’.