David Christie Murray
David Christie Murray | |
---|---|
Born | (1847年04月13日)13 April 1847 High Street, West Bromwich, Staffordshire, England |
Died | 1 August 1907(1907年08月01日) (aged 60) London, England |
Resting place | Hampstead[1] |
Nationality | English |
Occupations |
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David Christie Murray (13 April 1847 – 1 August 1907) was an English journalist, who also wrote fiction.[2]
Life
[edit ]Murray was born in a home at High Street, West Bromwich, Staffordshire, one of six sons and five daughters of William Murray and Mary Withers; he was educated in West Bromwich and Spon Lane.[1] At the age of twelve, he joined his father's printing business. At age eighteen, he was sent to London for more training for the printing business, but, after a failed attempt at romance, he instead enlisted with the army. He became a private with the 4th Royal Irish Dragoon Guards.[3] After being bought out of the service by a great aunt, he became a journalist. Initially he wrote leaders for the Wednesbury Advertiser, then worked for the newspaper Birmingham Morning News reporting on police cases. In 1871, he married Sophie Harris, with whom he had a daughter, who died young. He had four children out of wedlock.[1]
Murray reported on the Russo-Turkish War during 1877–1878, then quit journalism to write fiction.[4] He spent a year touring England for a series of articles published in The Mayfair Magazine.[5] About 1879 he married his second wife, Alice, and the couple had a son, Archibald.[1] That year, Murray's story A Life's Atonement appeared in Chamber's Journal, followed by Joseph's Coat in 1880. The late 19th-century author George Gissing wrote in his diary that he had "heard of the book as good; of course find it very poor."[6] His 1882 novel By the Gate of Les was serialised in Cornhill Magazine and Aunt Rachel (1886) in The English Illustrated Magazine .[4] From 1881 to 1886 he lived in Belgium and France and from 1889 to 1896 in Nice, France. Murray was well traveled and a success as a lecturer.[1] During 1889, he gave a lecture tour in Australia, then during 1890 assisted productions there of the theatre company of Harry St. Maur.[2] During 1884–1885 he lectured in Canada and the United States.[1]
His work of criticism, My Contemporaries In Fiction, included "Under French encouragement: Thomas Hardy". In that essay he challenged some of the features of Hardy's later novels, in particular Jude the Obscure , the characterization in it of Sue Bridehead, and its effect on impressionable readers: "one of the gravest dangers which beset women is that of hysterical self-deception ... to make them believe that their emotions are worthy of the great human heart is to increase their morbid temptations."[7]
His financial difficulties increased in his later years, exacerbated by illness. One of his stories was completed when he was in the infirmary of HM Prison Wandsworth.[8]
Murray died in London after a long period of illness.[1]
Bibliography
[edit ]- A life's atonement[4] (1879)
- Joseph's coat[4] (1880)
- Val Strange[4] (1881)
- Coals of fire[4] (1881)
- Hearts[4] (1882)
- By the gate of Les[4] (1882)
- Aunt Rachel[4] (1886)
- The way of the World[4] (1883)
- Old Blazer's hero[4] (1887)
- A novelist's notebook[1] (1887)
- A bit of human nature[9] (1889)
- Cynic fortune[9] (1889)
- A dangerous catspaw[4] (1889) with Henry Herman
- First person singular[9] (1889)
- Model father[9] (1889)
- One traveller returns[9] (1889) with Henry Herman
- Rainbow gold[9] (1889)
- Schwartz[9] (1889)
- The weaker vessel[9] (1889)
- Wild Darrie[4] (1889) with Henry Herman
- The Bishops' Bible[9] (1890) with Henry Herman
- Paul Jones's alias[9] (1890) with Henry Herman
- He fell among thieves (1891), 2 volumes
- Only a shadow (1891)
- Bob Martin's little girl[2] (1892)
- The Great War of 189- (1892) (with P.H. Colomb and others)
- A wasted crime[9] (1893)
- Time's revenge[10] (1893)
- In direst peril[10] (1894)
- The making of a novelist, an experiment in autobiography[1] (1894)
- The martyred fool[2] (1895)
- The investigations of John Pym[9] (1895)
- Mount Despair and other stories[2] (1895)
- A rising star[9] (1895)
- A Capful o' Nails (1896)
- My contemporaries in fiction[10] (1897)
- A rogue's conscience[2] (1897)
- The Cockney Columbus[2] (1898)
- A race for millions[10] (1898)
- Tales in prose and verse[10] (1898)
- Recollections[2] (1908)
References
[edit ]- ^ a b c d e f g h i Lee, Elizabeth (1912). "Murray, David Christie" . In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography (2nd supplement). Vol. 2. London: Smith, Elder & Co. p. 666.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Arnold, John; Woodhouse, John A.; Batten, Hay (2008), The Bibliography of Australian Literature: K-O to 2000, vol. 3, University of Queensland Press, p. 499, ISBN 978-0702235986.
- ^ Adcock, A. St. John (September 1908), The Bookman, vol. 34, London: Hodder and Stoughton, p. 499.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Moon, George Washington (2005), Men and Women of the Time, Part Two, Kessinger Publishing, p. 654, ISBN 9781417972562.
- ^ Sutherland, John (1990), The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction, Stanford University Press, p. 451, ISBN 0804718423.
- ^ Coustillas, Pierre, ed. (1978), London and the Life of Literature in Late Victorian England: the Diary of George Gissing, Novelist, Brighton: Harvester Press, p. 266.
- ^ Murray, David Christie (1897), My Contemporaries in Fiction, London: Chatto & Windus, p. 182.
- ^ Catling, Thomas (1911). My Life's Pilmigrage. London: John Murray. pp. 337–340. (See p. 340.)
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m De Puy, William Harrison, ed. (1896), The University of Literature, vol. 15, J.S. Barcus, p. 654.
- ^ a b c d e De Puy, Daniel Coit Gilman; Peck, Harry Thurston; Colby, Frank Moore, eds. (1903), The New International Encyclopædia, vol. 12, Dodd, Mead and Company, p. 740.
External links
[edit ]- Works by David Christie Murray at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about David Christie Murray at the Internet Archive
- Works by David Christie Murray at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
- Elizabeth Lee, rev. Sayoni Basu. "Murray, David Christie (1847–1907)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/35157. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
- 1847 births
- 1907 deaths
- People from West Bromwich
- English male journalists
- 4th Royal Irish Dragoon Guards soldiers
- English male dramatists and playwrights
- 19th-century English dramatists and playwrights
- 19th-century English male writers
- Military personnel from the West Midlands (county)
- 19th-century British Army personnel