Special Collections
Book of the Month, October 2006
The Roxburghe Club is the oldest existing society of bibliophiles in Great Britain and perhaps the world, was formed in 1812 and has been publishing limited editions of texts since 1814. Featured here is one of two Roxburghe Club volumes published in 1906. Although not the only contribution on a modern subject – cf. Lord Aldenham’s Game of Ombre (1902) and Sir Mountstart Duff’s The Club, 1764-1905 (1905) – it is in a minority, most of the books being editions of medieval English works (especially verse), manuscript facsimiles, or historical publications such as collections of letters and papers or household books and diaries.
The book’s donor and author, Sir John Murray (1851-1928) was Treasurer of the Roxburgh Club at the time and was a typical member in that he had been educated at Eton and Oxford. One of the publishing family of John Murray, he had a special interest in Byron: his personal library included Byron manuscripts, and between 1898 and 1901 he had published a six-volume edition of Byron’s letters and journals. Ralph Milbanke, grandson of Byron and second earl of Lovelace, had published Astarte in 1905 to defend his grandmother concerning her separation from Lord Byron after just twelve months of marriage and had thereby, in Murray’s words, “elaborated the blackest charges against his Grandfather”; he had incidentally cast aspersions on the Murrays at the same time. Sir John Murray published Lord Byron and his Detractors, a set of three essays, in order to squash permanently the “many unproved calumnies” on Byron’s private life, the worst of which was that for at least two years he had lived incestuously with his half-sister, Mrs Augusta Leigh. Lord Lovelace’s death while the book was in press caused Murray some compunctions; however, he resolved to continue with publication because “the reputation of Lord Byron is at stake”.
This copy is inscribed by John Murray to Lady Dorothy Nevill (1826-1913), writer of history, travel and memoirs, and a leading society hostess. The inscription is shown here, together with portraits of Byron and of the child Annabella Milbanke (later Lady Byron) from Ralph Milbanke’a Astarte, edited by Mary Stuart Wortley, Countess of Lovelace (London, 1921), held at [S.L.] I [Byron - Milbanke].
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