A certain romantic spirit of enterprise shows itself in Murray’s character at the very outset of his career.  Tied to a partner of a petty and timorous disposition, he seizes an early opportunity to rid himself of the incubus.  With youthful ardour he begs of a veteran author to be allowed the privilege of publishing, as his first undertaking, a work which he himself genuinely admired.  He refuses to be bound by mere trading calculations.  “The business of a publishing bookseller,” he writes to a correspondent, “is not in his shop, or even in his connections, but in his brains.”  In all his professional conduct a largeness of view is apparent.  A new conception of the scope of his trade seems early to have risen in his mind, and he was perhaps the first member of the Stationers’ craft to separate the business of bookselling from that of publishing.  When Constable in Edinburgh sent him “a miscellaneous order of books from London,” he replied:  “Country orders are a branch of business which I have ever totally declined as incompatible with my more serious plans as a publisher.”

With ideas of this kind, it may readily be imagined that Murray was not what is usually called “a good man of business,” a fact of which he was well aware, as the following incident, which occurred in his later years, amusingly indicates.

The head of one of the larger firms with which he dealt came in person to Albemarle Street to receive payment of his account.  This was duly handed to him in bills, which, by some carelessness, he lost on his way home, He thereupon wrote to Mr. Murray, requesting him to advertise in his own name for the lost property.  Murray’s reply was as follows: 

TWICKENHAM, October 26, 1841.

MY DEAR-----,

I am exceedingly sorry for the vexatious, though, I hope, only temporary loss which you have met with; but I have so little character for being a man of business, that if the bills were advertised in my name it would be publicly confirming the suspicion—­but in your own name, it will be only considered as a very extraordinary circumstance, and I therefore give my impartial opinion in favour of the latter mode.  Remaining, my dear-----,

Most truly yours,

JOHN MURRAY.

The possession of ordinary commercial shrewdness, however, was by no means the quality most essential for successful publishing at the beginning of the nineteenth century.  Both Constable and Ballantyne were men of great cleverness and aptitude for business; but, wanting certain higher endowments, they were unable to resist the whirl of excitement accompanying an unprecedented measure of financial success.  Their ruin was as rapid as their rise.  To Murray, on the other hand, perhaps their inferior in the average arts of calculation, a vigorous native sense, tempering a genuine enthusiasm for what was excellent in literature, gave precisely that mixture of dash and steadiness which was needed to satisfy the complicated requirements of the public taste.