John Murray (publisher)
Encyclopedia
John Murray is an English publisher
, renowned for the authors it has published in its history, including Jane Austen
, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
, Lord Byron
, Charles Lyell
, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
, Herman Melville
, and Charles Darwin
. Since 2004, it has been owned by conglomerate Lagardère
under the Hachette UK brand.
The business was founded in London
in 1768 by John Murray I (1745–1793), an Edinburgh
-born Royal Marines
officer, who built up a list of authors including Isaac D'Israeli
and published the English Review.
John Murray the elder was one of the founding sponsors of the London evening newspaper The Star
in 1788.
He was succeeded by his son, John Murray II
, who made the publishing house one of the most important and influential in Britain. He was a friend of many leading writers of the day and launched the Quarterly Review
in 1809. He was the publisher of Jane Austen
, Sir Walter Scott
, Washington Irving
, George Crabbe
and many others. His home and office at 50 Albemarle Street
in Mayfair
was the centre of a literary circle, fostered by Murray's tradition of "Four o'clock friends", afternoon tea with his writers.
Murray's most notable author was Lord Byron
, who became a close friend and correspondent of his. Murray published many of his major works, paying him over £20,000 in rights. On 10 March 1812 Murray published Byron's second book, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
, which sold out in five days, leading to Byron's observation "I awoke one morning and found myself famous".
On 17 May 1824 Murray participated in one of the most notorious acts in the annals of literature. Byron had given him the manuscript of his personal memoirs to publish later on. Together with five of Byron's friends and executors, he decided to destroy Byron's manuscripts because he thought the scandalous details would damage Byron's reputation. Opposed only by Thomas Moore
, the two volumes of memoirs were dismembered and burnt in the fireplace at Murray's office. ("Byron: Child of Passion, Fool of Fame", page 3, Benita Eisler) Unfortunately we do not know what was contained in the memoirs.
John Murray III (1808–1892) continued the business and published Charles Eastlake's
first English translation of Goethe's
Theory of Colours
(1840), David Livingstone
's Missionary Travels (1857), and Charles Darwin
's Origin of Species (1859). Murray III contracted with Herman Melville
to publish Melville's first two books, Typee
(1846) and Omoo
(1847) in England; both books were presented as nonfiction travel narratives in Murray's Home and Colonial Library series, alongside such works as the 1845 second edition of Darwin's journals from his travels on the HMS Beagle
. John Murray III also started the Murray Handbooks in 1836, a series of travel guides from which modern-day guides are directly descended. The rights to these guides were sold around 1900 and subsequently acquired in 1915 by the Blue Guides
.
His successor Sir John Murray IV (1851–1928) was publisher to Queen Victoria
. Among other works, he published Murray's Magazine
from 1887 until 1891. Competitor Smith, Elder & Co.
was acquired in 1917.
His son Sir John Murray V (1884–1967), John Murray VI (John Arnaud Robin Grey Murray; 1909–1993) and John Murray VII (John Richmond Grey Murray; 1941–) continued the business until it was taken over.
In 2002, John Murray was acquired by Hodder Headline
, which was itself acquired in 2004 by French conglomerate Lagardère Group
. Since then, it has been an imprint under Lagardère brand Hachette UK.
has acquired it, including the manuscript of Charles Darwin
's Origin of Species. On 26 January 2005, it was announced that the National Library was to be given £17.7m by the Heritage Lottery Fund
towards the £31.2m price offered by John Murray (on condition the library digitise the materials and make them openly available). The Scottish Executive
agreed to make a contribution of £8.3m, with the National Library setting a £6.5m fundraising target for the remainder.
Publishing
Publishing is the process of production and dissemination of literature or information—the activity of making information available to the general public...
, renowned for the authors it has published in its history, including Jane Austen
Jane Austen
Jane Austen was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature, her realism and biting social commentary cementing her historical importance among scholars and critics.Austen lived...
, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle DL was a Scottish physician and writer, most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, generally considered a milestone in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger...
, Lord Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, later George Gordon Noel, 6th Baron Byron, FRS , commonly known simply as Lord Byron, was a British poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement...
, Charles Lyell
Charles Lyell
Sir Charles Lyell, 1st Baronet, Kt FRS was a British lawyer and the foremost geologist of his day. He is best known as the author of Principles of Geology, which popularised James Hutton's concepts of uniformitarianism – the idea that the earth was shaped by slow-moving forces still in operation...
, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...
, Herman Melville
Herman Melville
Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and the posthumous novella Billy Budd....
, and Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
. Since 2004, it has been owned by conglomerate Lagardère
Lagardère Group
Lagardère is a French-based multinational conglomerate headquartered in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. The group once covered a broad range of industries but is now largely focused on the media sector, in which it is one of the world’s leading companies...
under the Hachette UK brand.
History
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
in 1768 by John Murray I (1745–1793), an Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
-born Royal Marines
Royal Marines
The Corps of Her Majesty's Royal Marines, commonly just referred to as the Royal Marines , are the marine corps and amphibious infantry of the United Kingdom and, along with the Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary, form the Naval Service...
officer, who built up a list of authors including Isaac D'Israeli
Isaac D'Israeli
Isaac D'Israeli was a British writer, scholar and man of letters. He is best known for his essays, his associations with other men of letters, and for being the father of British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli....
and published the English Review.
John Murray the elder was one of the founding sponsors of the London evening newspaper The Star
The Star (London)
The Star was a London evening newspaper founded in 1788.The first edition was printed on 3 May 1788 under the editorship of Peter Stuart. Founding sponsors of the new paper included publisher John Murray and William Lane of the Minerva Press...
in 1788.
He was succeeded by his son, John Murray II
John Murray (1778-1843)
John Murray was a Scottish publisher and member of the famous John Murray publishing house.The publishing house was founded by Murray's father, who died when Murray was only fifteen years old. During his youth, a partner, Samuel Highley, ran the business, but in 1803 the partnership was dissolved...
, who made the publishing house one of the most important and influential in Britain. He was a friend of many leading writers of the day and launched the Quarterly Review
Quarterly Review
The Quarterly Review was a literary and political periodical founded in March 1809 by the well known London publishing house John Murray. It ceased publication in 1967.-Early years:...
in 1809. He was the publisher of Jane Austen
Jane Austen
Jane Austen was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature, her realism and biting social commentary cementing her historical importance among scholars and critics.Austen lived...
, Sir Walter Scott
Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular throughout much of the world during his time....
, Washington Irving
Washington Irving
Washington Irving was an American author, essayist, biographer and historian of the early 19th century. He was best known for his short stories "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle", both of which appear in his book The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. His historical works...
, George Crabbe
George Crabbe
George Crabbe was an English poet and naturalist.-Biography:He was born in Aldeburgh, Suffolk, the son of a tax collector, and developed his love of poetry as a child. In 1768, he was apprenticed to a local doctor, who taught him little, and in 1771 he changed masters and moved to Woodbridge...
and many others. His home and office at 50 Albemarle Street
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 received led to his suing for libel and to his eventual imprisonment...
in Mayfair
Mayfair
Mayfair is an area of central London, within the City of Westminster.-History:Mayfair is named after the annual fortnight-long May Fair that took place on the site that is Shepherd Market today...
was the centre of a literary circle, fostered by Murray's tradition of "Four o'clock friends", afternoon tea with his writers.
Murray's most notable author was Lord Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, later George Gordon Noel, 6th Baron Byron, FRS , commonly known simply as Lord Byron, was a British poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement...
, who became a close friend and correspondent of his. Murray published many of his major works, paying him over £20,000 in rights. On 10 March 1812 Murray published Byron's second book, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage is a lengthy narrative poem in four parts written by Lord Byron. It was published between 1812 and 1818 and is dedicated to "Ianthe". The poem describes the travels and reflections of a world-weary young man who, disillusioned with a life of pleasure and revelry, looks...
, which sold out in five days, leading to Byron's observation "I awoke one morning and found myself famous".
On 17 May 1824 Murray participated in one of the most notorious acts in the annals of literature. Byron had given him the manuscript of his personal memoirs to publish later on. Together with five of Byron's friends and executors, he decided to destroy Byron's manuscripts because he thought the scandalous details would damage Byron's reputation. Opposed only by Thomas Moore
Thomas Moore
Thomas Moore was an Irish poet, singer, songwriter, and entertainer, now best remembered for the lyrics of The Minstrel Boy and The Last Rose of Summer. He was responsible, with John Murray, for burning Lord Byron's memoirs after his death...
, the two volumes of memoirs were dismembered and burnt in the fireplace at Murray's office. ("Byron: Child of Passion, Fool of Fame", page 3, Benita Eisler) Unfortunately we do not know what was contained in the memoirs.
John Murray III (1808–1892) continued the business and published Charles Eastlake's
Charles Lock Eastlake
Sir Charles Lock Eastlake RA was an English painter, gallery director, collector and writer of the early 19th century.-Early life:...
first English translation of Goethe's
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...
Theory of Colours
Theory of Colours
Theory of Colours is a work by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe about the poet's views on the nature of colours and how these are perceived by man, published in 1810...
(1840), David Livingstone
David Livingstone
David Livingstone was a Scottish Congregationalist pioneer medical missionary with the London Missionary Society and an explorer in Africa. His meeting with H. M. Stanley gave rise to the popular quotation, "Dr...
's Missionary Travels (1857), and Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
's Origin of Species (1859). Murray III contracted with Herman Melville
Herman Melville
Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and the posthumous novella Billy Budd....
to publish Melville's first two books, Typee
Typee
Typee is American writer Herman Melville's first book, a classic in the literature of travel and adventure partly based on his actual experiences as a captive on the island Nuku Hiva in the South Pacific Marquesas Islands, in 1842...
(1846) and Omoo
Omoo
Omoo: A Narrative of the South Seas is Herman Melville's sequel to Typee, and, as such, was also autobiographical. After leaving Nuku Hiva, the main character ships aboard a whaling vessel which makes its way to Tahiti, after which there is a mutiny and the majority of the crew are imprisoned on...
(1847) in England; both books were presented as nonfiction travel narratives in Murray's Home and Colonial Library series, alongside such works as the 1845 second edition of Darwin's journals from his travels on the HMS Beagle
HMS Beagle
HMS Beagle was a Cherokee-class 10-gun brig-sloop of the Royal Navy. She was launched on 11 May 1820 from the Woolwich Dockyard on the River Thames, at a cost of £7,803. In July of that year she took part in a fleet review celebrating the coronation of King George IV of the United Kingdom in which...
. John Murray III also started the Murray Handbooks in 1836, a series of travel guides from which modern-day guides are directly descended. The rights to these guides were sold around 1900 and subsequently acquired in 1915 by the Blue Guides
Blue Guides
The Blue Guides are a series of highly detailed and authoritative travel guidebooks focusing almost exclusively on art and architecture along with the history and context necessary to understand them...
.
His successor Sir John Murray IV (1851–1928) was publisher to Queen Victoria
Victoria of the United Kingdom
Victoria was the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she used the additional title of Empress of India....
. Among other works, he published Murray's Magazine
Murray's Magazine
Murray's Magazine was a monthly magazine published by the John Murray publishing house. Sixty issues were published, from January 1887 through December 1891.It was priced at 1/- ....
from 1887 until 1891. Competitor Smith, Elder & Co.
Smith, Elder & Co.
Smith, Elder & Co. was a firm of British publishers who were most noted for the works they published in the 19th century.The firm was founded by George Smith and Alexander Elder and successfully continued by George Murray Smith .They are notable for producing the first edition of the Dictionary...
was acquired in 1917.
His son Sir John Murray V (1884–1967), John Murray VI (John Arnaud Robin Grey Murray; 1909–1993) and John Murray VII (John Richmond Grey Murray; 1941–) continued the business until it was taken over.
In 2002, John Murray was acquired by Hodder Headline
Hodder Headline
Headline Publishing Group is a British publishing company. It was founded in 1986 by Tim Hely Hutchinson, and acquired Hodder & Stoughton in 1992 to form Hodder Headline. It was acquired by Hachette Livre, from the WHSmith Group PLC, in 2005....
, which was itself acquired in 2004 by French conglomerate Lagardère Group
Lagardère Group
Lagardère is a French-based multinational conglomerate headquartered in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. The group once covered a broad range of industries but is now largely focused on the media sector, in which it is one of the world’s leading companies...
. Since then, it has been an imprint under Lagardère brand Hachette UK.
John Murray archive
The archive of John Murray Publishers, from 1768 through to 1920, was offered for sale to the nation by John Murray VII for £31 million and the National Library of ScotlandNational Library of Scotland
The National Library of Scotland is the legal deposit library of Scotland and is one of the country's National Collections. It is based in a collection of buildings in Edinburgh city centre. The headquarters is on George IV Bridge, between the Old Town and the university quarter...
has acquired it, including the manuscript of Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
's Origin of Species. On 26 January 2005, it was announced that the National Library was to be given £17.7m by the Heritage Lottery Fund
Heritage Lottery Fund
The Heritage Lottery Fund is a fund established in the United Kingdom under the National Lottery etc. Act 1993. The Fund opened for applications in 1994. It uses money raised through the National Lottery to transform and sustain the UK’s heritage...
towards the £31.2m price offered by John Murray (on condition the library digitise the materials and make them openly available). The Scottish Executive
Scottish Executive
The Scottish Government is the executive arm of the devolved government of Scotland. It was established in 1999 as the Scottish Executive, from the extant Scottish Office, and the term Scottish Executive remains its legal name under the Scotland Act 1998...
agreed to make a contribution of £8.3m, with the National Library setting a £6.5m fundraising target for the remainder.
External links
- Official website
- National Library of Scotland - John Murray archive (the work is actually a new-release catalogue from 1890)
- Darwin Project, a project to publish all of the correspondence of Charles DarwinCharles DarwinCharles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
, including his correspondence with Murray.