My life : a record of events and opinions - Wallace-online.org

CHAPTER XIXFRIENDS AND OCCUPATIONS OF MY LATER YEARS(1888-I908)After my return from America in August, 1887, theremainder of the year was occupied at home inovertaking my correspondence, looking after mygarden, and making up for lost time in scientific andliterary reading, and in considering what work Ishould next occupy myself with. Many of my correspondents,as well as persons I met in America, toldme that they could not understand Darwin's " Originof Species," but they did understand my lectureon " Darwinism " ;and it therefore occurred to methat a popular exposition of the subject might beuseful, not only as enabling the general reader tounderstand Darwin, but also to serve as an answerto the many articles and books professing to disprovethe theory of natural selection. During the whole ofthe year 1888 I was engaged in writing this book,which, though largely following the lines of Darwin'swork, contained a great many new features, anddealt especially with those parts of the subject whichhad been most generally misunderstood.The spring of 1889 was occupied in passing itthrough the press, and it was published in May, whilea few corrections were made for a second edition inthe following October. During this time, however,