John Murray (publisher) - John Murray Timeline

John Murray Timeline

• 1768 - John MacMurray, a former lieutenant of the Marines, buys a bookselling business at 32 Fleet Street. He changes his name to Murray and uses his naval contacts to build up a thriving business
• 1807 - The first bestseller, A New System of Domestic Cookery. By A Lady, was published
• 1809 – The influential periodical The Quarterly Review founded
• 1811 – Childe Harolde’s Pilgrimage by Lord Byron published
• 1812 – John Murray moved to 50 Albemarle Street, its home for the next 191 years
• 1815 – Jane Austen decides she would like to move to Murray with Emma, published in 1816
• 1816 – Coleridge moved to John Murray for Christabel and Other Poems, which included ‘Kubla Khan’
• 1836 – The first guide books, Murray’s Handbooks, published by John Murray III
• 1857 – David Livingstone’s Missionary Travels, published – one of the many great 19th-century publications of exploration from John Murray
• 1859 – On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin published
• 1859 – The first self-help book, Samuel Smiles’s Self Help, published
• 1958 – John Betjeman’s Collected Poems published and has sold over 2 million copies to date
• 1967 – Last issue of The Quarterly Review published
• 1969 – The first TV tie-in, Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation, published
• 1975 – Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s Heat and Dust wins the Booker Prize
• 1977 – The ‘greatest travel book of the twentieth century’, A Time of Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor published
• 2002 – John Murray leaves family hands after seven generations
• 2002 – Peacemakers by Margaret MacMillan wins the Samuel Johnson Prize, the Duff Cooper Prize and the Hessell-Tiltman Prize
• 2003 – The first new acquisition since the company became part of Hodder Headline (now Hachette), A Million Little Pieces by James Frey, becomes a perennial and controversial bestseller
• 2004 – Rebirth of the John Murray fiction list with Neil Jordan’s Shade
• 2005 – Beasts of No Nation by Uzodinma Iweala wins John Llewellyn Rhys Prize
• 2007 – Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones becomes a global bestseller, wins the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and is shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize
• 2008 – Amitav Ghosh launches his epic Ibis trilogy with Sea of Poppies, shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize
• 2008 – Down River by John Hart wins Edgar Award for Best Novel
• 2008 – The Secret Life of Words by Henry Hitchings wins the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize
• 2009 – The Last Child by John Hart wins CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger/ITV Thriller of the Year Award, and the Edgar Award for Best Novel
• 2009 – Martyr by Rory Clements, special mention in CWA Ellis Peters Historical Fiction Award
• 2009 - Up in the Air by Walter Kirn turned into a film starring George Clooney
• 2010 – Revenger by Rory Clements wins CWA Ellis Peters Historical Fiction Award
• 2010 - Film Sarah's Key, starring Kristin Scott-Thomas, released, based on Tatiana de Rosnay's novel of the same name
• 2010 – Wait For Me! By Deborah Devonshire shortlisted for the British Book Awards Biography of the Year
• 2011 – Mistaken by Neil Jordan wins Irish Book of the Year Award
• 2012 – Icelight by Aly Monroe wins CWA Ellis Peters Historical Fiction Award
• 2012 - Lloyd Jones's Mister Pip adapted into a film starring Hugh Laurie