charles_darwin

Biographies
publishing company John Murray. John Murray III took over the company
in 1843. He turned it into a financially stable and thriving business.
There were two major reasons for the company’s success under
Murray. The first was the publishing success of Murray’s Handbooks
for Travellers. While traveling around England and Scotland in 1827
and 1828, Murray noticed a dearth of good guidebooks for both countries:
he decided to write his own. He traveled all over Europe
between 1829 and 1843 taking extensive notes and writing travel
guides. The sales of these handbooks generated a regular and lucrative
source of income for the company. The second reason was Murray’s
ability to recognize manuscripts that would become bestsellers. Apart
from The Origin of Species, Murray published Missionary Travels and
Researches in South Africa; Including a Sketch of Sixteen Years’ Residence
in the Interior of Africa, and a Journey from the Cape of Good Hope to
Loanda on the West Coast; thence across the Continent, down to the River
Zambesi, to the Eastern Ocean (1857), the account of the Scottish
explorer and missionary David Livingstone, and Lux Mundi (1889),
the controversial group of essays written by Anglicans who integrated
new ideas such as evolution into the Church of England’s doctrines.
Darwin chose Murray as his publisher for The Origin of Species
because of Murray’s good reputation, wide scholarly interests, and
useful connections. In science, Murray was a keen amateur geologist
and mineralogist. Murray even wrote a book on geology, Skepticism
in Geology (1877). Murray had several famous friends, including the
four-time British prime minister William Gladstone (1809–1898);
George Grote (1794–1871), the historian who had written what most
contemporary critics considered the definitive history of Greece; and
Arthur Stanley (1815–1881), the Dean of Westminster Abbey (1864–
1881). Murray even made the acquaintance of Queen Victoria. In
1862, he published a volume of speeches by Victoria’s husband
Prince Albert. The company who had the initial contract was not
able to publish the book by the anniversary of Albert’s death: Murray
did and the Queen was grateful. Most important, Murray was
unafraid of the controversy generated by the books he published and
treated his authors well; for example, he gave Darwin complete control
over the content and writing style of his books.
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Sir Richard Owen (20 July 1804–
18 December 1892)
Sir Richard Owen was remembered, in the years after his death,
for two so-called accomplishments: his opposition to Darwin’s theory