Murray was connected
at the outset of his career was that of Archibald Constable & Co., of
Edinburgh. This connection had a considerable influence upon Murray's
future fortunes.
Constable, who was about four years older than Murray, was a man of
great ability, full of spirit and enterprise. He was by nature generous,
liberal, and far-seeing. The high prices which he gave for the best kind
of literary work drew the best authors round him, and he raised the
publishing trade of Scotland to a height that it had never before
reached, and made Edinburgh a great centre of learning and literature.
In 1800 he commenced the _Farmer's Magazine_, and in the following year
acquired the property of the _Scots Magazine,_ a venerable repertory of
literary, historical, and antiquarian matter; but it was not until the
establishment of the _Edinburgh Review_, in October 1802, that
Constable's name became a power in the publishing world.
In the year following the first issue of the _Review_, Constable took
into partnership Alexander Gibson Hunter, eldest son of David Hunter, of
Blackness, a Forfarshire laird.
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