History of Reading News. Vol.XXII No.2 (1999:Spring)
by Peter Fisher

Monaghan's claim that Lindley Murray was "the best-selling producer of books in the world during the first four decades of the nineteenth century" (p. vii) sent me immediately to the appendix of the book. There I found that he carefully supports this claim with rigorous scholarship, showing how Murray's literacy textbooks outsold Noah Webster's over that period. Once I was satisfied that, indeed, I had missed the importance of Murray's English Reader and its companions in relation to the history of reading instruction, I was happy to sit down and start again at the beginning of this fascinating book about the Murray family.

The book is really in two parts, although it is not sequenced in this way. One part explores the history of the Murray family--notable merchants in New York during the revolutionary period. The other part examines Lindley Murray's contribution to the propagation of Enlightenment ideas through his texts for schools. The connection between the two parts is an explanation of how Lindley, a member of this important New York family, came to write his texts while in "exile" in England. In doing so, Monaghan introduces us to a cast of characters who surround a famous anecdote in American history--when Mary Lindley Murray and her daughters entertained General Howe and his men after the Battle of Manhattan, in September 1776, thereby delaying them and allowing American troops to escape to fight another day. But exploration of this episode is only a small part of an interesting history.

Monaghan begins his book by describing how he became interested in Lindley Murray while he and his wife, Jennifer, were collecting old literacy texts in the 1970s and 1980s. "There was hardly a book barn or antiquarian bookstore that we visited ... that did not have one copy or more of the English Reader on its shelves or in a dusty corner" (p.5). Once his interest was aroused, subsequent research showed how little information was available about the author. The most important source of information he found was Lindley's own Memoirs, but Monaghan argues that these are deeply flawed. The main issue, as he explains it, is Lindley's avoidance of the subject of the Revolutionary War. Later in the book we learn how this is related to Lindley's activities as a loyalist, and his forced exile from America. However, by questioning how an American exile came to influence Enlightenment ideas in the United States, Monaghan intrigues us and draws us into his tale.

The main part of the book tells the tales of the various Murrays, their ascendance to positions of power as mer-chants in pre-revolutionary New York, their Quaker faith and the connections this afforded them, and their involvement in trade during the war itselfThe account is interesting, al-though occasionally the family tree provided at the begin-ning of the book becomes a necessity. In addition, readers unfamiliar with New York City may find themselves, as I did, wondering about all the references to streets and areas. A map would have made this part of the reading easier. Nevertheless, Monaghan's style is very readable, and I became fascinated by this family, and wondered more and more about Lindley's readers.

Since the audience for this review may relate more to that part of the book, it will suffice to say here that Monaghan argues persuasively that Lindley was a sacrificial lamb for the loyalist activities of the patriarch, Robert, and others of his family during the war. He examines one incident in detail, and covers other information which is quite sufficient to show that the Murrays chose the wrong side. He suggests that in post-war New York, the Murray connections were such that they did not lose their property, like many other loyalists, but that some "punishment" was needed. Lindley was therefore exiled. Once in England, rather than join other exiles in London, Lindley chose to take his family to York, where he could be among Quaker brethren. Unable to trade with the United States, he began his "literary" career in 1787 with the publication of a collection of writings of or about famous figures on the subject of death called The Power of Religion on the Mind in Retirement, Sickness and Death. The success of this volume led to his English Grammar in 1795, and the English Reader in 1799. In the next two years, two other readers followed, and a speller in 1804. Together these publications "in effect formed a four-book reading series" (p. 94).

In the appendix, Monaghan explains clearly his argument for the importance of these books in terms of their sales. He uses the number of editions of each book (342 editions of the English Reader alone) and a conservative estimate of 15,000 copies per edition to arrive at his figures. He bases these calculations on information from publishers, Murray's secretary, and the use of stereotype presses. His final calculations put Murray's sales in America at 12.5 million. Similar calculations made by Jennifer Monaghan for Webster's speller and literacy textbooks (Monaghan, 1983) arrived at a figure of 10.6 million. Webster had few sales in England, whereas a conservative estimate for Murray arrives at an additional 3 million. This would make him the largest-selling author in the world for this period. Webster's and Murray's competitors, such as Cobb and Pierpoint, come nowhere near these two in volume of sales. Monaghan points out the decline in Murray's sales coincided with the introduction of the McGuffey Readers, and the move to graded reading series. Sheer numbers alone would be interesting, but the book is more than that. Monaghan argues forcibly that Murray's readers influenced thinking in the United States through their content. He examines why Abraham Lincoln would call the EnglishReader "the best schoolbook ever put in the hands of an American youth" (p. 4). In examining the content, Monaghan found that 36 of the 81 prose selections were written by the Rev. Hugh Blair, a major figure in the Scottish Enlightenment.

Other selections follow a similar egalitarian position, including anti-slavery ideas. Small wonder, then, that the reader was more popular in the United States than in England. The author argues that "the English Reader reflected a strain of British civic humanist thought, transmitted through the Enlightenment, that had become an intrinsic part of the American intellectual landscape" (p. 97). Monaghan also suggests that the text is as remarkable for things it does not contain. For example, "there is absolutely no endorsement of the class system and not a single slighting reference to the lower classes" (p. 98). Thus ideas that matched the intellectual climate in the United States found a means of transmission through these readers. Generations of early Americans grew up reading texts that supported "American" ideals, although (as his competitor Cobb pointed out) none of the authors was American.

Clearly this book challenges those of us interested in the history of reading in the United States to revise our ideas about early literacy texts. Murray's English Reader and its companions must be considered as a major part of literacy instruction in the early nineteenth century. Monaghan has given us a carefully researched book, which will not only lead to more scholarship in the area, but which provides a wonderful read.

Reference
Monaghan, E. Jennifer. A Common Heritage: Noah Webster's Blue-Back Speller. Hamden, CT, 1983.

Peter Fisher is Director of the Reading and Language Doctoral Program at National-Louis University and a former president of the History of Reading SIG.