The John Murray Archive

19/11/2010

Saturday marks the anniversary of the death of 'the Ettrick Shepherd' James Hogg (1770-1835), read our tribute to him on the JMA blog http://digital.nls.uk/jma/blog/index.cfm

15/11/2010

Join Writer in Residence at the John Murray Archive, playwright Peter Arnott, as he explores one of the most exciting publishers' archives in the world.

11/11/2010

For Remembrance Day

Have you heard of the poet Laurence Binyon? You will know a verse from one of his poems. I came across a couple of his letters to John Murray in the archive, about that very verse. From the contents I realised that I know it very well, we all do. It is known across the world. He wrote these words:

01/11/2010

Listen to a reading of the 1852 Washington Irving letter of introduction posted below

01/11/2010

For those travelling to London in the mid-19th century, letters of introduction like this one from Washington Irving to John Murray on behalf of a friend gave access to Murray's famous literary drawing room, a kind of VIP club for the literary crowd.

29/10/2010

Puppet Kings and security forces: Afghanistan 1836

We've met Alexander Burnes who was a sensual, ambitious young Scotsman on the make, a talented linguist who argued for one policy...that of offering support to Dost Mohammed's rule in Kabul as a bulwark against the Russians, but who changed to supporting the Dost's overthrow when that became the pol

25/10/2010

More literary discoveries in the JMA

JANE Austen's brother said everything she wrote "came finished from her pen", but fresh research suggests her celebrated style owed much to the sensibility of an obscure editor.

18/10/2010

Maundy money for a Monday

There I was, looking through the letters of Charles Gore, Bishop of Oxford (1853-1932), when I came upon a ticket to Westminster Abbey, "Distribution of the Royal Maundy", Thursday 12th April, 1900. It's closely followed by a couple of letters saying "sorry about your complaint". What's the story?

15/10/2010

More dispatches from the Archive with Peter Arnott discovering a tense British presence in Afghanistan, not in 2010 but 1841

What I'm featuring here is an image of Dost Mohammed, with whom Burnes went to Kabul to negotiate in 1835, and an extract from the Preface to ''Cabool', his second and last book, published by John Murray in 1842. These are the last published words of the author, who wrote a foreward from the Cantonm...

14/10/2010

Time for the Fererro Rocher chocolates... Washington Irving, the suave transatlantic author of 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow' is the newest author to join the JMA interactive exhibition at the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh. Here's a bit of background info on his connection to John Murray http://digital.nls.uk/jma/who/irving/index.html

12/10/2010

Money, whether a lack of it or a desire for more is a feature in some of the vast correspondence between publisher John Murray and his authors as this letter from Herman Melville shows.

12/10/2010

Struggling poet and novelist James Hogg's (1770-1835) often bemusing correspondence is one of the many items featured in the John Murray Archive

Hogg thought one answer to his lack of money could be a rich wife, so he asked Murray to find him one in London. However, he did not actually marry until several years later when he met Margaret Phillips, a daughter of a prosperous Dumfriesshire farmer. Although she was twenty years younger than him...