A Publisher and his Friends: Volume 1
Memoir and Correspondence of the Late John Murray, with an Account of the Origin and Progress of the House, 1768–1843

An 1891 two-volume account of the life of the publisher John Murray (1778–1843), told largely through his correspondence.

Samuel Smiles (Author)

9781108073912, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 17 April 2014

522 pages, 2 b/w illus.
21.6 x 14 x 3 cm, 0.58 kg

This two-volume account of the life and friendships of the publisher John Murray (1778–1843), told largely through his voluminous correspondence, was published in 1891 by Samuel Smiles (1812–1904), whose Lives of the Engineers, Self-Help, and other works are also reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection. Murray was only fifteen when his father, the founder of the famous firm, died, but after a period of apprenticeship he took sole control of the business, becoming the friend as well as the publisher of a range of the most important writers of the first half of the nineteenth century, in both literature and science. Perhaps his most famous author was Lord Byron, whose memoir of his own life, considered unpublishable, was burned in the fireplace at Murray's office in Albemarle Street, London. Volume 1 commences with the beginnings of the firm in Scotland, and takes the story up to 1818.

Preface
1. John MacMurray or Murray
2. John Murray (II)
3. Murray and Constable
4. Marmion, Domestic Cookery, the Edinburgh Review
5. Origin of the Quarterly Review
6. George Ellis and William Gifford
7. The Quarterly launched
8. Publishing business
9. Murray and Gifford
10. Lord Byron's works, 1812 to 1814
11. Mr Murray's removal to 50 Albemarle Street
12. Murray's drawing-room
13. Charles Maturin
14. Thomas Campbell, John Cam Hobhouse, James Hogg
15. Lord Byron's dealings with Mr Murray
16. Lord Byron's dealings with Mr Murray (cont.)
17. Byron's death and the destruction of his memoirs
18. Blackwood and Murray
19. Termination of partnership between Murray and Blackwood.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: general [DSB]