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
view 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 Doctor Lane's
delightful hydropathic establishment at Moor Park. I abstracted the
manuscript begun on a much larger scale in 1856, 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 corrected
in the later editions, it has remained substantially the same book.

It is no doubt the chief work of my life. It was from the first highly
successful. The first small edition of twelve hundred fifty copies was
sold on the day of publication, and a second edition of three thousand
copies soon afterward. Sixteen thousand copies have now (1876) been sold
in England; and considering how stiff a book it is, this is a large
number. It has been translated into almost every European tongue, even
into such languages as Spanish, Bohemian, Polish, and Russian. It has
also, according to Miss Bird, been translated into Japanese, and is much
studied in that country. Even an essay on it has appeared in Hebrew,
showing that the theory is contained in the Old Testament! The reviews
were very numerous; for some time I collected all that appeared on the
_Origin_ and on my related books, and these amount (excluding newspaper
reviews) to two hundred sixty-five; but after a time I gave up the
attempt in despair. Many separate essays and books on the subject have
appeared; and in Germany a catalogue, or bibliography, on "Darwinismus"
has appeared every year or two.

The success of the _Origin_ may, I think, be attributed in large part to
my having long before written two condensed sketches, and to my having
finally abstracted a much larger manuscript, which was itself an
abstract. By this means I was enabled to select the more striking facts
and conclusions. I had also during many years followed a golden rule,
namely, whenever a published fact, a new observation or thought, came
across me which was