John Murray (27 November 1778 – 27 June 1843) was a
Scottish publisher and member of the
John Murray publishing house. He published works by authors such as
Sir Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels '' Ivanhoe'', '' Rob Roy' ...
,
Lord Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and has been regarded as among the ...
,
Jane Austen and
Maria Rundell
Maria Eliza Rundell (née Ketelby; 1745 – 16 December 1828) was an English writer. Little is known about most of her life, but in 1805, when she was over 60, she sent an unedited collection of recipes and household advice to John Murray, of ...
.
Life
The publishing house was founded by Murray's father, who died when Murray was only fifteen years old. During his adolescence, he ran the business with a partner Samuel Highley, but in 1803 the partnership was dissolved.
Murray soon began to show the courage in literary speculation which earned for him later the name given him by Lord Byron of "the Anak of publishers", a reference to
Anak
Anak (; he, , homophone to a word for "giant, long neck, necklace"; ) is a figure in the Hebrew Bible. His descendants are mentioned in narratives concerning the conquest of Canaan by the Israelites. According to the Book of Numbers, Anak was a ...
in the
Book of Numbers
The book of Numbers (from Greek Ἀριθμοί, ''Arithmoi''; he, בְּמִדְבַּר, ''Bəmīḏbar'', "In the desert f) is the fourth book of the Hebrew Bible, and the fourth of five books of the Jewish Torah. The book has a long and c ...
.
In 1807 Murray took a share with
Archibald Constable
Archibald David Constable (24 February 1774 – 21 July 1827) was a Scottish publisher, bookseller and stationer.
Life
Constable was born at Carnbee, Fife, son of the land steward to the Earl of Kellie.
In 1788 Archibald was apprenticed to P ...
in publishing Sir Walter Scott's ''
Marmion''. In the same year, he became part-owner of the ''
Edinburgh Review'', although with the help of
George Canning he launched in opposition the ''
Quarterly Review
The ''Quarterly Review'' was a literary and political periodical founded in March 1809 by London publishing house John Murray. It ceased publication in 1967. It was referred to as ''The London Quarterly Review'', as reprinted by Leonard Scott, f ...
'' in 1809, with
William Gifford
William Gifford (April 1756 – 31 December 1826) was an English critic, editor and poet, famous as a satirist and controversialist.
Life
Gifford was born in Ashburton, Devon, to Edward Gifford and Elizabeth Cain. His father, a glazier and ...
as its editor, and Scott, Canning,
Robert Southey
Robert Southey ( or ; 12 August 1774 – 21 March 1843) was an English poet of the Romantic school, and Poet Laureate from 1813 until his death. Like the other Lake Poets, William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Southey began as a ra ...
,
John Hookham Frere
John Hookham Frere (21 May 1769 – 7 January 1846) was an English diplomat and author.
Early life
Frere was born in London. His father, John Frere, a member of a Suffolk family, had been educated at Caius College, Cambridge, and became Se ...
and
John Wilson Croker
John Wilson Croker (20 December 178010 August 1857) was an Anglo-Irish statesman and author.
Life
He was born in Galway, the only son of John Croker, the surveyor-general of customs and excise in Ireland. He was educated at Trinity College Dubl ...
among its earliest contributors. Murray was closely cooperated with Constable, but ended the association in 1813 due to Constable's business methods that did not work properly.
In 1811, the first two cantos of Lord Byron's ''
Childe Harold
''Childe Harold's Pilgrimage'' is a long narrative poem in four parts written by Lord Byron. The poem was published between 1812 and 1818. Dedicated to " Ianthe", it describes the travels and reflections of a world-weary young man, who is disi ...
'' were brought to Murray by
Robert Charles Dallas
Robert Charles Dallas (1754 – 1824) was a Jamaican-born British poet and conservative writer. He is known also for a contentious book on Lord Byron, and a history of the Second Maroon War.
Family
Robert Charles Dallas was born in Kingston, Jama ...
, to whom Byron had presented them. Murray paid Dallas 500
guineas
The guinea (; commonly abbreviated gn., or gns. in plural) was a coin, minted in Great Britain between 1663 and 1814, that contained approximately one-quarter of an ounce of gold. The name came from the Guinea region in West Africa, from where m ...
for the copyright. In 1812, he bought the publishing business of
William Miller (1769–1844), and migrated to 50
Albemarle Street
Albemarle Street is a street in Mayfair in central London, off Piccadilly. It has historic associations with Lord Byron, whose publisher John Murray was based here, and Oscar Wilde, a member of the Albemarle Club, where an insult he recei ...
. Literary London flocked to his house and Murray became the centre of the publishing world, regularly hosting meetings between authors and friends in his drawing-room.
It was in his drawing-room that Scott and Byron first met, and here, in 1824, after the death of Lord Byron, that the manuscript of his memoirs, considered by Gifford unfit for publication, was destroyed. A close friendship existed between Byron and his publisher, but for political reasons business relations ceased after the publication of the fifth canto of ''
Don Juan
Don Juan (), also known as Don Giovanni ( Italian), is a legendary, fictional Spanish libertine who devotes his life to seducing women. Famous versions of the story include a 17th-century play, ''El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra'' ...
''. Murray paid Byron some £20,000 for his various poems. To
Thomas Moore
Thomas Moore (28 May 1779 – 25 February 1852) was an Irish writer, poet, and lyricist celebrated for his ''Irish Melodies''. Their setting of English-language verse to old Irish tunes marked the transition in popular Irish culture from Irish ...
he gave nearly £5,000 for writing the life of Byron, and to
George Crabbe
George Crabbe ( ; 24 December 1754 – 3 February 1832) was an English poet, surgeon and clergyman. He is best known for his early use of the realistic narrative form and his descriptions of middle and working-class life and people.
In the 177 ...
£3,000 for ''Tales of the Hall''.
He is referred to in
Susanna Clarke's novel ''
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
''Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell'' is the debut novel by British writer Susanna Clarke. Published in 2004, it is an alternative history set in 19th-century England around the time of the Napoleonic Wars. Its premise is that magic once existed i ...
'', and is played by
John Sessions
John Marshall (11 January 1953 – 2 November 2020), better known by the stage name John Sessions, was a British actor and comedian. He was known for comedy improvisation in television shows such as ''Whose Line Is It Anyway?'', as a panellist o ...
in
its television adaptation.
In Fiction
The character Prester John in ''John Paterson's Mare'',
James Hogg
James Hogg (1770 – 21 November 1835) was a Scottish poet, novelist and essayist who wrote in both Scots and English. As a young man he worked as a shepherd and farmhand, and was largely self-educated through reading. He was a friend of many ...
's allegorical satire on the Edinburgh publishing scene, is based on John Murray.
See also
*
Murray's Family Library
Notes
References
*
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Murray, John
1778 births
1843 deaths
Scottish book publishers (people)
19th-century Scottish newspaper publishers (people)
19th-century Scottish businesspeople