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A Publisher and His Friends - Memoir and Correspondence of John Murray; with an - Account of the Origin and Progress of the House, 1768-1843 by Samuel Smiles
page 156 of 594 (26%)
entry: "Waverley; or, 'Tis Sixty Years Since; a novel in 3 vols. 12mo."
The work was not, however, published until July 1814.] He was confirmed
in his idea that Walter Scott was the author after carefully reading the
book. Canning called on Murray next day; said he had begun it, found it
very dull, and concluded: "You are quite mistaken; it cannot be by
Walter Scott." But a few days later he wrote to Murray: "Yes, it is so;
you are right: Walter Scott, and no one else."

In the autumn of 1814 Mrs. Murray went to Leith by sailing-ship from the
Thames, to visit her mother and friends in Edinburgh. She was
accompanied by her son John and her two daughters. During her absence,
Mr. Murray wrote to her two or three times a week, and kept her _au
courant_ with the news of the day. In his letter of August 9 he
intimated that he had been dining with D'Israeli, and that he afterwards
went with him to Sadler's Wells Theatre to see the "Corsair," at which
he was "woefully disappointed and enraged.... They have actually omitted
his wife altogether, and made him a mere ruffian, ultimately overcome by
the Sultan, and drowned in the New River!"

Mr. Blackwood, of Edinburgh, was then in London, spending several days
with Mr. Murray over their accounts and future arrangements. The latter
was thinking of making a visit to Paris, in the company of his friend
D'Israeli, during the peace which followed the exile of Napoleon to
Elba. D'Israeli had taken a house at Brighton, from which place the
voyagers intended to set sail, and make the passage to Dieppe in about
fourteen hours. On August 13 Mr. Murray informs his wife that "Lord
Byron was here yesterday, and I introduced him to Blackwood, to whom he
was very civil. They say," he added, "that Madame de Staƫl has been
ordered to quit Paris, for writing lightly respecting the Bourbons." Two
days later he wrote to Mrs. Murray:
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