This methodologically sophisticated study is a landmark in interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary scholarship. Travels into Print: Exploration, Writing, and Publishing with John Murray combines the research methodologies of geographers, historians and literary critics to analyse the processes through which the genre of non-European travel and exploration books flourished under the auspices of the prestigious publisher John Murray during the period from 1773 to 1859. These dates relate to the publication of the following books that proved highly popular among Murray's readerships: Sydney Parkinson's A Journal of A Voyage to the South Seas, in His Majesty's Ship, the Endeavour (1773) and Francis Leopold McClintock's The Voyage of the ‘Fox’ in the Arctic Seas: A Narrative of the Discovery of the Fate of Sir John Franklin and His Companions (1859). In the intervening years, the firm of Murray published an estimated 239 books, including Charles Darwin's Journal of Researches into the Natural History and Geology of the Countries Visited during the Voyage of HMS Beagle round the World (1845), which appeared in Murray's less expensive series Home and Colonial Library; Austen Henry Layard's best-selling Nineveh and Its Remains (1849) and Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon (1853); and David Livingstone's Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa (1857). Owing to Murray's close connection with the Admiralty, the Royal Geographical Society and prominent conservative politicians, the firm acquired the status of a publisher of authoritative non-European travel and exploration books. Some of them even carried the imprimatur of various government organizations or cultural institutions, such as the Admiralty, the Royal Navy and the Trustees of the British Museum, as they had been commissioned and authorized by them. Thus, although Murray was also the publisher of widely acclaimed writers such as Lord Byron, Walter Scott and Jane Austen, whose Emma (1815) was published anonymously, the firm simultaneously cultivated the reputation of a benevolent, philanthropic institution that was eager to promote scientific knowledge through geographical exploration – a connection now considered crucial for the emergence of modern science. Their books were celebrated for their scientific truths, credibility and verisimilitude thanks to personal testimony, evidence, use of illustrations, maps which charted new territories such as the course of the river Niger, and the inclusion of prefaces by highly positioned figures such as John Barrow, second secretary to the Admiralty. Nonetheless, as the careful excavation of the archival material testifies, the publication of high-quality non-European travel and exploration books was a significantly profitable endeavour. Murray was driven by profit – as the firm's well-organized process of book-making testifies, and which the authors of this study map out meticulously. Even the reception and dissemination of these books owed much to the positive reviews placed in prestigious journals, including the Quarterly Review, an outlet owned by the firm of John Murray.

Thanks to the expertise of Innes M. Keighren, Charles W.J. Withers and Bill Bell, two geographers and a literary critic, the book offers a lucid account of the scientific, political and cultural contexts in which John Murray's travel writers authored their narratives of non-European explorations. Historians of science and geographers will find vital information about the ways travel and exploration contributed to the emergence of modern science. The archive of John Murray holds substantial details about the instruments that travel writers used during their journeys to map the new territories they had embarked to explore. Cultural historians and those interested in questions around authorship, identity and authorization of writing and reading will find impressive accounts of how explorer–writers concealed their identity and resorted to anonymity or disguise for a number of reasons. As travellers they were advised to adopt the local mode of dress and assimilate to the local cultures and customs for safety as a number of travellers had lost their lives. As writers, they used anonymity often to conceal their associations with the Admiralty and the political establishment, or even their gender as Murray's few female travel writers tended to do.

The structure of Travels into Print broadly follows Robert Darnton's valuable conceptual framework of ‘the communications circuit’, with which Darnton studied the life cycle of a book from the author to the publisher and then to the printer, bookseller, reader and reviewers. By delving into the extensive archive of John Murray, Travels into Print illuminates the overarching principles and modes of production through which the firm produced its 239 travel books, the details of which are presented in a carefully prepared appendix. Further, the authors significantly complement Darnton's model. As they explain, Darnton's model was developed to study an earlier period when publishers did not employ in-house readers. But from the late eighteenth century onwards, the role of these in-house readers in a book's life cycle became crucial: Murray's readers would evaluate the submitted manuscripts, assess their veracity against other sources, and estimate their contribution to scientific knowledge and their value in the travel-writing marketplace. Upon acceptance of the manuscript by Murray, these in-house readers would contribute to the book's final shaping through editing – in many cases even rewriting and restructuring the book.

The connections between science, authorship, publishing and empire are also highlighted as a significant number of these travel writers were often half-pay naval officers who had been commissioned by the Admiralty to undertake the specific exploration, log their observations and draw maps of the explored areas. Upon return, they would submit their writings to the Admiralty and/or Murray, whose in-house readers would assess them. John Barrow, second secretary to the Admiralty and also in-house reader at Murray, would often read and sometimes he, alongside other readers and editors of the firm, would amend these accounts to serve various purposes: from the endorsement of earlier scientific suppositions and studies to a celebration of the British Empire's contribution to scientific knowledge. At one point Barrow exercised fierce editorial control over Hugh Clapperton's journal about his exploration of the river Niger because it would publicly challenge his own earlier theory about the river's termination. Although the book was eventually published, Barrow ensured that his preface diminished the value of Clapperton's account by alluding to his humble background and lack of sophistication. Such details that demonstrate the authors' thorough exploration of the John Murray archive and their astute deployment of contextual material make Travels into Print an invaluable contribution to the fields of geography, history of science and history of the book. It will be a benchmark against which the value of further interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary studies will be measured.