Excerpt from A Publisher and His Friend, Vol. 1 of 2: Memoir and Correspondence of the Late John Murray, With an Account of the Origin and Progress of the House, 1768-1843 Lord Byron's letters to Mr. Murray, published in Moore's Life, have long been regarded not only as the best letters the poet ever wrote, but as masterpieces of English prose but hitherto Mr. Murray's letters, which called them forth, and form the complement of the correspondence, have never been made public. These, having been preserved by Lord Byron, and found amongst his papers, were bequeathed to Lord Broughton, and have been presented by his daughter, Lady Dorchester, to the present Mr. Murray. Many of these are incorporated in the following pages. No attempt has been made, nor would it have been possible within the reasonable limits of such a work as this, to give a detailed account of the men and women whose names appear in its pages, and, for the most part, those names are already familiar to every student of literature. The correspondence, which it is believed will, as a whole, cast fresh light on many an obscure spot in the history of modern English literature, is left, as far as possible, to tell its own tale, aided only by such elucidations and notes as seemed necessary for the use of the general reader. In carrying out this intention, it has occasionally been found necessary to print the whole or a portion of letters which have already appeared elsewhere, but for the most part, the materials included in these volumes are now published for the first time. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.