John Murray

John Murray is a Scotchman and both a publisher and seller of books and magazines. Various luminaries of the English literary and political world are accustomed to frequent his rooms, and Lord Byron is among his authors. Mr Murray lives in Albemarle-street above his bookshop. He is unhappily blind of one eye, the right one having been injured in his childhood when his schoolmaster stuck it with a knife.
Mr Murray's connexion with magic and magicians is twofold: he is the first publisher of Gilbert Norrell's chosen organ of communication, The Friends of English Magic, and later also the publisher of Jonathan Strange's The History and Practice of English Magic. This latter work is planned to be issued in three volumes, but in fact after the very first goes on sale Gilbert Norrell, who is strongly opposed to its publication, begins by various magical means to destroy it. This necessarily involves Mr Murray in considerable distress, embarrassment and expense [50].

For more information on Mr Murray and his publishing house, see here.