Lindley Murray

This article is about the grammarian and textbook author. For the tennis player, see Lindley Murray (tennis).

Lindley Murray (27 March 1745 – 16 February 1826), grammarian, was born in a house near his father's mill, just north of Harper Tavern in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, 18 miles northeast of Harrisburg. He was the eldest son of Robert Murray, the Quaker merchant, and Mary Lindley Murray, whose home was on a hill in Manhattan on what today is Park Avenue and 36th Street. This was the center of an area known to this day as Murray Hill.

Lindley Murray practised as a lawyer in New York, but after the American Revolution he left for England. He settled in York, where a large Quaker community existed. It has been suggested that Murray fled America because of loyalist sympathies, and that political circumstances prevented him from returning to his native country. Recent research has illustrated that this was not the case, but that his illness kept him captive. In England, Lindley began writing school textbooks. He wrote eleven of them, beginning in 1795, and became the best-selling author in the world of the first half of the nineteenth century. Murray's textbooks were widely printed in Britain (particularly his English Grammar), but they had their greatest success in the new United States, partly because no international copyright agreement existed and the books could be reprinted without royalties being paid. Some sixteen million copies of Murray's books were sold in America and another four million in Britain. His most popular work was his English Reader, full of selections from the liberal-minded writers of the Scottish Enlightenment, most notably the Rev. Hugh Blair. Abraham Lincoln praised the English Reader as "the best schoolbook ever put in the hands of an American youth". The English Reader utterly dominated the American market for readers for over a generation from 1815 into the 1840s. It was replaced mainly by the McGuffey Readers, a series of reading texts, which began to appear in 1836.

For the last sixteen years of his life, Murray's physical condition, likely the result of PPS (Post-Polio Syndrome), confined him to his house in Holgate, near York. Charles Monaghan's (1998) biography of Lindley Murray, "The Murrays of Murray Hill", long considered a standard work, has been recently succeeded by Fens-de Zeeuw's (2011) authoritative work on Murray's life and language use, in which several earlier misconceptions are set straight.

Works

• Extracts from the Writings of Divers Eminent Authors, of Different Religious Denominations; and at Various Periods of Time, Representing the Evils and Perncious Effects of Stage Plays, and Other Vain Amusements. 1787
• The Power of Religion on the Mind In Retirement, Sickness, and at Death; Exemplified in the Testimonies and Experience of Men Distinguished by Their Greatness, Learning, or Virtue. 1787
• English Grammar Adapted to the Different Classes of Learners. With an Appendix, Containing Rules and Observations, for Assisting the More Advanced Students to Write with Perspicuity and Accuracy. By Lindley Murray. 1795
• English Exercises: Adapted to the Grammar Lately Published by L. Murray: Consisting of Exemplifications of the Parts of Speech, Instances of False Orthography, Violations of the Rules of Syntax, Defects in Punctuation, and Violations of the Rules Respecting Perspicuity and Accuracy: Designed for the Benefit of Private Learners, As Well As for the Use of Schools. 1797
• The Beauties of Prose and Verse Selected from the Most Eminent Authors. 1798
• The English Reader: or, Pieces in Prose and Poetry, Selected from the Best Writers Designed to Assist Young Persons to Read with Propriety and Effect; to Improve Their Language and Sentiments; and to Inculcate Some of the Most Important Principles of Piety and Virtue. : With a Few Preliminary Observations on the Principles of Good Reading. 1799
• Sequel to The English Reader Or, Elegant Selections in Prose and Poetry. Designed to Improve the Highest Class of Learners in Reading; ... By Lindley Murray. 1800

References

• Claus Bernet (2010). Bautz, Traugott. ed (in German). Lindley Murray. Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). 31. Nordhausen. cols. 943–958. ISBN 3-88309-544-8. http://www.bautz.de/bbkl/m/murray_li.shtml. 
• Lyda Fens-de Zeeuw (2011). Lindley Murray (1745–1826), Quaker and Grammarian. Utrecht: Lot Dissertation Series.
• "Murray, Lindley." American Authors 1600–1900. The H. W. Wilson Company, New York, 1938
• worldcat.org Accessed June 28, 2007
• Pennsylvania Historical Markers site

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Cousin, John William (1910). A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London, J. M. Dent & Sons; New York, E. P. Dutton.

External links

• Murray's English Reader various formats available at the Internet Archive