How It Came to Be Written 



1857, to be published at the same time with 

 Wallace's essay, arc given in the "Journal* 1" 

 the Proceedings of the Linnean Society," 1858, 

 p. 45. I was at first very unwilling to consent. 

 as I thought Mr. Wallace might consider my 

 doing so unjustifiable, for I did not thru know- 

 how generous and noble was his disposition. 

 The extract from my MS. and the letter to 

 Asa Gray had neither been intended for publi- 

 cation, and were badly written. Mr. Wallace's 

 essay, on the other hand, was admirabl; 

 pressed and quite clear. Nevertheless, our joint 

 productions excited very little attention, and 

 the only published notice of them which I can 

 remember was by Professor Haughton of Dublin, 

 whose verdict was that all that was new in them 

 was false, and what was true was old. This 

 shows how necessary it is that any new idea 

 should be explained at considerable length 

 in order to arouse public attention. 



In September, 1858, I set to work by the 

 strong advice of Lyell and Hooker to prepare 

 a volume on the transmutation of species, 

 but was often interrupted by ill health and 

 short visits to Dr. Lane's delightful hydro- 

 pathic establishment at Moor Park. I abstracted 

 the MS. begun on a much larger scale in 1S56, 

 and completed the volume on the same reduced 

 scale. It cost me thirteen months and ten 

 days' hard labor. It was published under the 

 title of the "Origin of Species," in November, 

 1859. Though considerably added to and cor- 

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