But really, Murray’s evident pleasure and excitement comes from something which comes to a publisher infrequently, if at all: the pleasure of contributing to the creative process. Byron and Murray formed a partnership like few others before the rise of the editor in 20th-century New York. At one point, he writes excitedly to Byron, ‘Buonaparte has either solicited or accepted a retirement upon a Pension in the Island of Elba... a Fine Subject for an Epic.’ Byron obliged, up to a point, and started work immediately on that splendid rant, the ‘Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte’. It must have been deeply gratifying to Murray.

It’s a fascinating, complicated relationship, full of business and gossip, idealism and literary interests — it is startling to remember, in the middle of all this, that Murray was publishing Jane Austen, and asked Byron what he thought of Emma. The complexity and allure of Byron’s personality, as outlined by these letters to him, need no rehearsal; what I find absorbing is the equal complexity and bravado of Murray’s own. That life-defining act of incineration remains, in the end, a slight puzzle. The author of these letters ought to have known better.

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