Possible Austeniana in the John Murray archive?
From the Scotsman’s, er, bytes to Our Lady of the Janeites’ ears!
The Murrays finally sold the collection to the NLS earlier this year for £31 million, the money being raised from a Heritage Lottery grant, the Scottish Executive and £6.5 million by public subscription. Indicative of the size and depth of the archive, neither the Murrays or the library know exactly what was being handed over, as no-one has ever managed to catalogue the vast resource. Even the valuers for the sale had to make an educated guess of its value when they ran out of time. A single Jane Austen letter can command £50,000 and there were thousands of equivalent letters and documents in the archive. Not only that, new discoveries were being made every week, making it a daunting, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for its curators.
Now, before everyone gets all excited, we would like to point out that they are NOT saying that there are letters to or from Jane Austen in the archive; Jane saved copies of her correspondence with Murray anyway, so they are included in the letters; but there is one letter at least from Murray in which he discusses Jane’s work with Walter Scott. And if that notion doesn’t blow your mind, you’re not paying attention! We are not among those Janeites who revile poor Cassandra for burning most of Jane’s letters–we dare say Jane would have approved, and that’s good enough for us–but the idea of finding some fresh tidbits, we confess, excites us tremendously.
December 12th, 2006 at 9:26 am
It would be wonderful if they discovered some scraps that shed any new light on Jane, her life or her writing. However, this bit in the article did give me pause:
“Every afternoon at 4pm, he would welcome into his home the biggest and best brains from every aspect of life… great names would assemble in a bubbling cauldron of intellectual debate. These men and women became known as the “four o’clock friends. Among their ranks were Jane Austen, Byron, Walter Scott, Michael Faraday, Thomas Malthus, Mungo Park and JMW Turner.”
It makes it sound like she was swinging by for tea and sherry every week. I’m sure many of you have surely read as much as I about Jane, as well as what can be deducted about her personality, preferences and pleasures from her writing and – especially – her letters. Can any of you imagine her dropping by even once (to say nothing of on a regular basis) to take part in such a ‘bubbling cauldron of intellectual debate.”? Not that she probably would not have felt very honoured to meet Scott or some of the other literary stars, but remember this is a woman who, on hearing that a friend of a friend wanted to be introduced after learning she was the author of S&S, wrote: “ I should like to see Miss Burdett very well, but that I am rather frightened by hearing that she wishes to be introduced to me - If I am a wild Beast, I can not help it!”
Austen may have been ‘among the ranks’ of Murray’s writers, but I seriously doubt she was ever one of what they refer to as the ‘four o’clock friends’.
December 12th, 2006 at 10:36 am
Ah, thank you–meant to point that out. Very doubtful indeed–though she did spend SOME time in London so it’s possible that she dropped by once for a private interview. I think it’s interesting that she wrote to Mr. Murray herself rather than going through Henry.
December 12th, 2006 at 11:04 am
Yes, I can very much imagine her personally calling on him. Although there were definite signs in her letters that she was fretting over how long publication of Emma was taking at a certain point, her relationship with Murray always generally seemed to be cordial and professional (unlike the first idiots who bought and sat on NA for a decade), and she would have a strong feeling of what was due her publisher in terms of courtesy and respect. But I also think it would definitely have been a private interview, rather than dropping in during one of his open-house social hours. Not that I don’t think Jane couldn’t have more than held her own - even against the redoubtable Byron or Scott!
December 15th, 2006 at 10:56 am
I don’t read the above quote in comment #1 to mean that the “four o’clock friends” were a group of writers who met together regularly, but rather that Mr. Murray considered them to be HIS “four o’clock friends” who showed up during his aftrenoon teatime. Most likely this is a random list of some of the people who would drop by at this hour.
Jane was in London once to visit the Prince Regent. Could this have been a time when she would have visited Murray?