A Publisher and His Friends

Samuel Smiles wrote A Publisher and His Friends: Memoir and Correspondence of John Murray, with an account of the origin and progress of the house, 1768-1843. The preface says that when a grandfather's memoirs were published, twenty years ago, they met with a most favourable and gratifying reception at the hands of the public. The preface says the volumes supply an important, if not an indispensable, chapter in the literary history of England during the first half of the nineteenth century.

The writing-master holds a penknife awkwardly in his hand, point downwards, and while a boy stoops to pick up a fallen book, the blade runs into his eye and entirely destroys the sight. Mr. Murray sends an introduction in which he commits the charge of his son to a schoolmaster and agrees to the terms of fifty guineas. A letter of Scott's, written in August, has the words to John Ballantyne: I have the pleasure to enclose Murray's acceptances. Scott is described as sorely pressed for ready money, buying one piece of land after another, usually at exorbitant prices, and having already increased the estate of Abbotsford from 150 to nearly 1,000 acres.