THIS HISTORY OF ONE OF THE most remarkable of publishing houses, run by members of the same family for 134 years appears under its familiar imprint, but this is misleading. In 2002, the firm founded by the first John Murray (who called himself McMur
ray, though born Murray) was sold to Hodder Headline, itself now owned by the French publishing firm Hachette, and so its independent existence came to an end.
A sad end, most of those who have had dealings with John Murray would say, of a history spanning seven generations, since the first John Murray, born on the Dalhousie estates by Dalkeith, set himself up as a bookseller and publisher in London. For Scotland, however, John Murray VII's decision to sell the family firm brought a wonderful reward. Murray's incomparable archive was offered to the National Library of Scotland for £33 million. The Heritage Lottery Fund came up with half the price and the archive was acquired. Some thought the price too high – even though the archive was independently valued at £45 million, and it probably would have been sold for more than that on the market. Moreover, Murray stipulated that the money for the sale should be placed in a charitable trust, to be used for looking after the archive in Edinburgh.
With this act Murray went some way towards expunging the one blot on the family record: the burning of Byron's memoirs by John Murray II. Byron was the firm's most famous author, and it has never been easy to understand why Murray committed this act of vandalism – despite the fierce opposition of Byron's friend and biographer, the Irish poet Thomas Moore. Byron in fact had entrusted the memoirs to Moore, but he passed them on to Murray as security for a loan. That at least was what he believed, but no loan agreement was ever signed. Murray regarded the memoirs as his property, and knew that Byron's estranged wife and his half-sister (and lover), Augusta, were anxious that they should not be published. Byron's close friend, John Cam Hobhouse, agreed; he feared they would damage Byron's reputation, though, as Humphrey Carpenter says, "there is no evidence that Hobhouse had read them".
What seems most extraordinary – and reprehensible – about the decision to consign the manuscript to the flames in the Murray house, 50 Albemarle Street, is that even if it was thought undesirable to publish, there seems no good reason why the manuscript should not have been put aside for future publication when all those immediately concerned were dead. Indeed, both John Murray V and John (Jock) Murray VI hoped, and may even have believed, that this had been done, and from time to time instituted searches of the building. All in vain: it is now virtually certain the memoirs were burned. Subsequently, the House of Murray has atoned for Murray II's vandalism by its devotion to Byron's memory, most notably by the publication, over 21years, of Leslie Marchand's magnificent 12-volume edition of Byron's Letters and Journals, a great work of scholarship, and an unfailing delight. Moreover, almost every worthwhile book on Byron has been published by John Murray, though one that escaped was Robert Nye's masterly re-creation of the memoirs in the form of a novel that was published by Hamish Hamilton.
Murray II usually had an eye for a good thing. He published Thomas Malthus's An Essay on the Principle of Population – and then a rejoinder to Malthus's argument and prophecy of famine if the population continued to grow. Later in the 19th century Charles Darwin was a Murray author – evidence that the firm did not shrink from controversy. Murray II also started a daily paper, intended to rival the Times, in association with a bright young spark called Benjamin Disraeli. It flopped, and Disraeli, rather meanly, caricatured Murray in his first novel. Murray III had an eye for what was commercial: his series of Travel Handbooks, responding to the popularity of continental travel in the railway age, were bestsellers, which must have subsidised the work of distinguished but poor-selling authors. And in the early 20th century, the firm had another hit with its publication of Queen Victoria's letters.
By the mid-20th century 50 Albemarle Street had become a London institution, with authors inclined to congregate there for sherry at six in the evening. Dervla Murphy was only one of many authors who felt it was "special" to be published by John Murray, speaking of "the sheer friendliness, the lack of any sort of friction". The firm still had successes – John Betjeman's Collected Poems, for instance – and was proud to publish authors like Patrick Leigh Fermor, Freya Stark, and Osbert Lancaster, whose books got glowing reviews not always reflected in sales. Gradually it dropped most fiction (though it did publish George Mackay Brown's Beside the Ocean of Time). More and more frequently the firm was described as "the last of the gentleman publishers" – no recommendation in the 1980s and 1990s. By this time it could not offer authors advances comparable to those from the publishing conglomerates, and indeed in the last 20 years of its independent existence, it was kept afloat by its Education List – something of which many Murray authors were probably unaware.
So perhaps the sale was inevitable. I had a book commissioned in Albemarle Street, published from the Hodder Headline building in the Euston Road; all right, but not what I had hoped for. My own fault, of course, for being late on delivery.
Carpenter died before finishing his history, and more material was added by James Hamilton and Candida Brazil – seamlessly. It's continuously lively and interesting, with vivid and perceptive character sketches of the successive members of the dynasty. It tells a remarkable story – even if one can't forgive John Murray II for his act of vandalism.
The full article contains 996 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
