xt7qjq0stw34_4522 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7qjq0stw34/data/mets.xml https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7qjq0stw34/data/1997ms474.dao.xml unknown archival material 1997ms474 English University of Kentucky The physical rights to the materials in this collection are held by the University of Kentucky Special Collections Research Center.  Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. W. Hugh Peal manuscript collection David Christie Murray print and signature text 43.94 Cubic Feet 86 boxes, 4 oversize boxes, 22 items Poor-Good Peal accession no. 11453. David Christie Murray print and signature 2017 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7qjq0stw34/data/1997ms474/Box_53/Folder_30/Multipage25197.pdf undated section false xt7qjq0stw34_4522 xt7qjq0stw34  

 HARPER & I3: lOTIlER S, PUBLISHERS,
FRANKIIN SOLAR]I,1\7L‘\V YORK. ‘

 

 DAVID CHRISTIE MURRAY.*

There was a time when Christie Murray was a very
popular novelist, and when not a few of us were looking
confidently to his writing the novel that should lift him into
something more than popularity; but he never wrote it.
He seemed to have all the gifts of the born story~teller;
he had a true feeling for dramatic effect, a broad sympathy
with humanity, could touch you to tears or laughter, and
mould his characters so that they lived ; he had the mind
and the heart and the great ambition, but he missed great—
ness, and the novels he wrote during his last seven or eight
years have done his reputation more harm than good.
Personally, I count among my happier memories one of the
day when a novel of his first came into my hands. It was
“ Joseph’s Coat,” and I was so taken with it that in the
next few months I had bought or borrowed “ A Life’s
Atonement,” “ Aunt Rachel ” (the finest thing, I suppose,
that he ever did in fiction), ” Rainbow Gold,” “ Val
Strange ” ; and I have never re—read them in maturer years
for something of the Same fear he had, as he tells you in
these “ Recollections,” about reading again a certain story

that gave him “ one superb moment ” when he was young :

“ That moment came with the reading of a story, entitled
‘ The Mandan's Revenge; or the Ricearee \Var Spear,’ which
came from the pen of Mr. l’erey B. St. John. and may still be
found in some faraway number oi Clirmzbw's’s journal. I have
never gone back to that story. 1 have never had the courage to
go back. It would be something like a crime to dissipate the
halo of romance and splendour which lives about it, as I know
most certainly I should do if I read it over again. I daresay Mr.
St. John was an estimable person in his day ; but he could not
have written one such story as that my memory so dimly, yet
splendidly recalls without having made himself immortal."

Murray was born in Staffordshire, in 1847 ; his father was
a printer and stationer, and at the age of twelve he left
school and started work in his father’s printing office.
When he was nearly eighteen he came to London to follow
the same trade, and a disappointment in love drove him
to enlist. An old great—aunt presently bought him out of

J

* ” Recollections.’
net. (John Long.)

By David Christie Murray. 10s. 6d.

 

 

 

 

Mr. David Christie Murray.