<i>The Seven Lives of John Murray: The Story of a Publishing Dynasty, 1768-2002</i> (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Seven Lives of John Murray: The Story of a Publishing Dynasty, 1768-2002 Andrew Nicholson The Seven Lives of John Murray: The Story of a Publishing Dynasty, 1768–2002. By Humphrey Carpenter. Edited by Candida Brazil and James Hamilton, with additional material by James Hamilton. London: John Murray, 2008. Pp. xiv + 370. ISBN 978 0 7195 6532 8. £25.00. When Humphrey Carpenter died, so sadly and prematurely at the age of 58 in January 2005, he had already submitted a first draft of The Seven Lives of John Murray and was in the process of revising it and filling in the gaps he had left to cover at a later date. It has been the task of his editors, Candida Brazil and James Hamilton, to complete this process, drawing on Humphrey's own notes and research and, where lacunae remained – as was the case in certain areas of the nineteenth century – supplying the deficiency. It is much to their credit, therefore, that the resulting volume should read so smoothly and effortlessly – a seamless narrative, whose pace never falters, in which the lively and engaging voice of Humphrey is heard throughout. The Seven Lives of John Murray traces the personal and publishing lives of the seven successive John Murrays who have run the firm from its foundation in 1768 up to its sale in 2002. The book runs chronologically and is divided into three parts, with an appendix to which two amusing but purely imaginative film scenarios have been wisely relegated (though gratefully retained) by the editors. Humphrey had full and free access to the Murray Archive (then at 50 Albemarle Street, London, but now permanently housed in the National Library of Scotland) and has made every possible use of original material therein as well as of manuscript and other documentary sources in the British Library and the Bodleian. While he has profited from Bill Zachs's exemplary biography, The First John Murray and the Late Eighteenth-Century London Book Trade, he has been extremely cautious and judicious in relying on Samuel Smiles's laborious and often inaccurate A Publisher and His Friends: Memoir of John Murray – Smiles's agenda having been, as Humphrey justly observes, 'to elevate the Murray family, socially and intellectually' from the outset. In the case of John Murray IV, where there is rather a dearth in the records, and in order to illustrate how the firm and dynasty might have appeared to an outsider, Humphrey has allowed himself (as have his editors) his single venture into quasi fiction by personating the member of another publishing family, Charles James Longman; but, [End Page 71] we are assured, although he is 'an invented character', 'everything factual he says about John Murray IV is based on documentation in the archive'. With regard to those nearer our own time, Humphrey conducted viva-voce interviews with the cheroot-smoking, stout-drinking, bicycling travel writer Dervla Murphy (who carried a gun and used it three times), with Diana Murray, John and Virginia Murray, and other members of the family and firm and has drawn on the recollections of many of those whom they published or who were connected with them, such as Peter Quennell, Harold Nicolson, Freya Stark, Osbert Lancaster, Patrick Leigh Fermor and John Betjeman. Such a variety of voices and perspectives gives colour and freshness to a story that covers more than two hundred years of publishing and embraces almost every author of repute. Part I (1768–1811) introduces us to the first John Murray (originally McMurray) of Edinburgh, who had begun life in the Navy before coming south and setting up the bookselling business (and dropping the 'Mc') at 32 Fleet Street. Although he had literary pretensions of his own and a preference for literature (he established the English Review, which he edited himself and for which he paid reviewers generously), he published a wide range of disciplines – science, medicine, religion, travel, topography – and traded not only locally in England, Scotland and Ireland, but as far afield as Australia and India (to which he also exported beer). Like his son, he had a circle of advisers, gave trade dinners and held literary gatherings, but, unlike...