AT JOHN MURRAY'S, 1843-1892 By George Paston
Many pleasant sidelights on the authors and readers of the -Victorian age are thrown by George Paston's story of a great publishing house, entitled At John Murray's 1843-1892 (Murray, 15s.). The third John Murray, with whom the authoress is mainly concerned, was a shrewd and able man, less speculative perhaps than his father, who published for Byron and who lost money over young Disraeli's daily paper, but just as eager to welcome new books of real importance like Darwin's Origin of Species or Layard's Nineveh. He was the originator of the well-known Handbooks, or travellers' guides, and wrote the first half-dozen himself, and began his reign in Albemarle Street with a series of cheap reprints. He had inherited from his father some valuable educational copy- rights, including Mrs. Markham's History of England by Mrs. Penrose, which yielded a yearly profit of £1,400, and Little Arthur's History of England, by Lady Calleott, which, a Liverpool schoolmaster thought, was dangerous on -account of its Radical sentiments, so that he had " been obliged to cause certain pages in it to be effaced, which adds to the expense of the book." Murray was timid in regard to books that might mvour of infidelity or impropriety ; he rejected Ilarrid Martineau's Eastern Life on these grounds, was afraid to publish Charlotte Yonge's " best-seller "- The Heir of Redclyffe. and parted with the Academy because the editor wanted to publish a theological article of modernist tendencies. But with most books Murray cheerfully took- great risks, and would seem to have been rewarded for his courage and good sense. DarWilitt great book sold like a novel, Livingstone's Travels sold an edition of 12,000 at a guinea on the day of publication, and' Samuel Smiles's Self-help of course sold in its tens of
thousands for many years and was translated into nearly every known language." Lord Ernie, who did much work for John Murray the third, contributes a reminiscent preface to this agreeable book.
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