Philip Hensher

Cosseting a bestselling author

The Letters of John Murray to Lord Byron<br />edited by Andrew Nicholson

issue 21 July 2007

There was once a Greek called Herostratus, who, in search of enduring fame, set fire to the Temple of Diana at Ephesus. (A successful strategy, clearly.) It’s odd to think that the second John Murray’s permanent fame rests on such an act of destruction, since in undertaking it he was not, like Herostratus, trying to make his name remembered.

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