Page:Carroll Lane Fenton - Darwin and the Theory of Evolution.djvu/25

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Darwin's diary, under the date of October 1, 1859, bears the entry, "Finished proofs (thirteen months and ten days) of Abstract on 'Origin of Species'; 1,250 copies printed. The first edition was published on November 24th, and all copies sold first day." On the 9th of December he and his family returned home from a visit to a water-cure establishment; the only later entry in the diary is, "During end of November and beginning of December employed in correcting for second” edition of 3,000 copies; multitude of letters."

There is a great deal implied in those two brief entries—more, even, than Darwin himself appears to have realized. In the first place, it is very unusual for an entire edition of a scientific book, even when that edition is only 1,250 copies, to be exhausted the day it appears. It is still more unusual for a second edition, nearly two and a half times as great as the first, to be called for within a month. Such things generally happen to but two classes of books: those that are very bad, such as most popular novels, and those that are almost unbelievably good. It is characteristic of the former that they are received with enthusiasm and acclaim; of the latter that they are welcomed by a few, suspected yet considered by many, and attacked by the majority of those who read them as well as by an equal or greater number who don't. And this is particu-