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JOHN MURRAY (2) (1778-1843)

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Originally appearing in Volume V19, Page 42 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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JOHN MURRAY (2) (1778-1843)  , his son, was then fifteen . During his minority the business was conducted by
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Samuel Highley, who was admitted a partner, but in 1803 the partner-
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ship was dissolved . Murray soon began to show the courage in
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literary
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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
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publishing Marmion, and became
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part owner of the
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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
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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
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copyright . In 1812 he bought the publishing business of William Miller (1769-1844), and migrated to 50, Albemarle Street . Literary
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London flocked to his house, and Murray became the centre of the publishing
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world . It was in his
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drawing-
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room that Scott and Byron first met, and here, in 1824, after the
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death of Lord Byron, the MS. of his
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memoirs, considered by Gifford unfit for publication, was destroyed .

A

close friendship existed between Byron and his publisher; but for
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political reasons business relations ceased after the publication of the 5th canto of Don Juan . Murray paid Byron some £20,000 for his various poems . To Thomas Moore he gave nearly 5000 for writing the
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life of Byron, and to Crabbe £3000 for Tales of the Hall . He died on the 27th of
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June 1843 . His son, JOHN MURRAY (3) (1808-1892), inherited much of his business tact and
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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
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Magazine, November 1889) . He published many books of travel; also Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors, The
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Speaker's Commentary, Smith's Dictionaries; and
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works by Hallam, Gladstone, Lyell, Layard, Dean Stanley, Borrow, Darwin, Living-stone and Samuel Smiles . He died on the 2nd of
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April 1892, and was succeeded by his eldest son, JOHN MURRAY (4) (b.1851), under whom, in association with his
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brother, A . H . Hallam Murray, the
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firm was continued . See Samuel Smiles, A Publisher and his Friends, Memoirs and Correspondence of the
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late John Murray ... (1891), for the second John Murray; a series of three articles by F .

Espinasse on " The House of Murray," in The Critic (

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Jan . 186o) ; and a paper by the same writer in Harper's New Monthly Magazine (
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Sept . 1885) . See the Letters and
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Journals of Byron (ed . Prothero, 1898-1901) .

End of Article: JOHN MURRAY (2) (1778-1843)
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