The archive of the John Murray publishing house holds many records of people that travelled throughout the world. Letters from abroad, proofs for works about their travels and illustrations of things they had seen can be found in this vast archive. Most areas of the world were covered under the imprint of John Murray. Some […]
Author: Rachel Beattie
What’s in a name? Not enough information!
When cataloguing archival material, it is obviously useful to be able to identify the creator of the record. Details such as full name and dates of birth and/or death can help researchers to clearly pick out potential people of interest. However, the name and dates alone are not always enough to distinguish one person from another. […]
Seals, slashes and stamps
Although there are many fascinating stories and events depicted in the content of letters, legal documents, ledgers and manuscripts, sometimes the physical nature of the record will enlighten readers about the origin of the document, its use, or give clues to or about the author. So, it can be interesting to take a closer look […]
Surviving Emotions
One of the best things about working with archives is finding records that give a real sense of the personality of the writer. There are many examples of this throughout the John Murray Archive, an archive that spans over two hundred years. The letters written to the successive heads of the publishing house regularly take a personal […]
Christmas Correspondence
For some people, this may be a little early to be posting about Christmas. We are not long in to December after all. But since the Christmas trees, tinsel and twinkly lights seem to be going up here in Edinburgh (where the National Library of Scotland archive offices are based), it seemed natural to keep […]
The Archival Detective
When the John Murray Archive (JMA) arrived at the National Library of Scotland in 2006, approximately 17,500 individuals had been identified as having an item relating to them in the archive. For each of these, their full name, dates and epithet (a little descriptive detail in order to distinguish that particular person) needs to be […]
Money and Murray
The thousands of letters that I catalogue as part of the John Murray Archive cover a huge variety of themes. But one topic of conversation that comes up time and again is that of money. This is probably unsurprising. The John Murray Archive is, after all, a business archive. The ledgers and letters largely reflect […]