Memoir of John Murray
John Barrow to John Murray, [1818]
I will not, if I can help it, contribute to your ruin by your
excessive liberality, and cannot therefore consent to a compliance with your
offer. Whether the trifle will sell or not, I am no judge; it will depend
greatly on the feeling or the whim of the public; but whether it does or not,
it is entirely at your service; and to relieve you from any idea of an
obligation, if it should be fortunate enough to require a second edition, I
will then bargain with you for the copyright. You must
alter the outside label, which
46 | MEMOIRS OF JOHN MURRAY | |
is a fallacy, and make it ‘Voyages into the Arctic Regions,’
or, if you prefer it, into the Polar Regions; and I think you should not go
above 12s. for the price, for as that point is just at
this moment being discussed in the papers, your friend of the Times will be
most ready to seize hold of it.
I am, my dear Sir, very faithfully yours,
I shall want about a couple of dozen copies to give away.
Sir John Barrow, first baronet (1764-1848)
English traveler, secretary of the Admiralty, and author of over two hundred articles in
the
Quarterly Review; he is remembered for his
Mutiny on the Bounty (1831).
The Quarterly Review. (1809-1967). Published by John Murray, the
Quarterly was instigated by Walter
Scott as a Tory rival to the
Edinburgh Review. It was edited by
William Gifford to 1824, and by John Gibson Lockhart from 1826 to 1853.
The Times. (1785-). Founded by John Walter, The Times was edited by Thomas Barnes from 1817 to 1841. In the
romantic era it published much less literary material than its rival dailies, the
Morning Chronicle and the
Morning
Post.