JOHN MURRAY (2) (1778-1843)

This article appears in Volume V19, Page 42 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: JEE-JUN

JOHN MURRAY (2) (1778-1843) , his son, was then fifteen. During his minority the business was conducted by Samuel Highley, who was admitted a partner, but in 1803 the partner-ship 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." In 1807 he took a share with Constable in publishing Marmion, and became part owner of the Edinburgh Review, although with the help of Canning he launched in opposition the Quarterly Review (Feb. 1809), with William

Gifford

as its editor, and Scott, Canning, Southey, Hookham Frere and John Wilson

Croker

among its earliest contributors. Murray was closely connected with Constable, but, to his distress, was compelled in 1813 to break this association on account of Constable's business methods, which, as he foresaw, led to disaster. In 1811 the first two cantos of Clzilde Harold were brought to Murray by R. C. Dallas, to whom Byron had presented them. Murray paid Dallas 500 guineas for the copyright. In 1812 he bought the publishing business of William Miller (1769-1844), and migrated to 50, Albemarle Street. Literary London flocked to his

house

, and Murray became the centre of the publishing world. It was in his drawing-room that Scott and Byron first met, and here, in 1824, after the death of Lord Byron, the MS. 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 5th

canto

CANTO (from the Lat. cantus, a song)

of Don Juan. Murray paid Byron some 20,000 for his various poems. To Thomas Moore he gave nearly 5000 for writing the life of Byron, and to Crabbe 3000 for Tales of the

Hall

. He died on the 27th of June 1843.
His son, JOHN MURRAY (3) (1808-1892), inherited much of his business tact and judgment. " Murray's Handbooks " for travellers were issued under his editorship, and he himself wrote several volumes (see his article on the " Handbooks " in Murray's Magazine, November 1889). He published many books of travel; also Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors, The Speaker's Commentary,

Smith

's Dictionaries; and works by Hallam, Gladstone, Lyell, Layard, Dean Stanley, Borrow, Darwin, Living-stone and Samuel Smiles. He died on the 2nd of April 1892, and was succeeded by his eldest son, JOHN MURRAY (4) (b.1851), under whom, in association with his brother, A. H. Hallam Murray, the firm was continued.
See Samuel Smiles, A Publisher and his Friends, Memoirs and Correspondence of the

late

LATE

John Murray ... (1891), for the second John Murray; a

series

SERIES (a Latin word from serere, to join)

of three articles by F. Espinasse on " The

House

of Murray," in The Critic (Jan. 186o) ; and a

paper

PAPER
PAPER (Fr. papier, from Lat. papyrus)

by the same writer in Harper's New Monthly Magazine (Sept. 1885). See the Letters and Journals of Byron (ed. Prothero, 1898-1901).

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