A second article on the same subject as the one just referred to appeared in the Press shortly after the first, but I have no copy.  It treated Machines from a different point of view, and was the basis of pp. 270-274 of the present edition of “Erewhon.” {1} This view ultimately led me to the theory I put forward in “Life and Habit,” published in November 1877.  I have put a bare outline of this theory (which I believe to be quite sound) into the mouth of an Erewhonian philosopher in Chapter XXVII. of this book.

In 1865 I rewrote and enlarged “Darwin among the Machines” for the Reasoner, a paper published in London by Mr. G. J. Holyoake.  It appeared July 1, 1865, under the heading, “The Mechanical Creation,” and can be seen in the British Museum.  I again rewrote and enlarged it, till it assumed the form in which it appeared in the first edition of “Erewhon.”

The next part of “Erewhon” that I wrote was the “World of the Unborn,” a preliminary form of which was sent to Mr. Holyoake’s paper, but as I cannot find it among those copies of the Reasoner that are in the British Museum, I conclude that it was not accepted.  I have, however, rather a strong fancy that it appeared in some London paper of the same character as the Reasoner, not very long after July 1, 1865, but I have no copy.

I also wrote about this time the substance of what ultimately became the Musical Banks, and the trial of a man for being in a consumption.  These four detached papers were, I believe, all that was written of “Erewhon” before 1870.  Between 1865 and 1870 I wrote hardly anything, being hopeful of attaining that success as a painter which it has not been vouchsafed me to attain, but in the autumn of 1870, just as I was beginning to get occasionally hung at Royal Academy exhibitions, my friend, the late Sir F. N. (then Mr.) Broome, suggested to me that I should add somewhat to the articles I had already written, and string them together into a book.  I was rather fired by the idea, but as I only worked at the Ms. on Sundays it was some months before I had completed it.

I see from my second Preface that I took the book to Messrs. Chapman & Hall May 1, 1871, and on their rejection of it, under the advice of one who has attained the highest rank among living writers, I let it sleep, till I took it to Mr. Trubner early in 1872.  As regards its rejection by Messrs. Chapman & Hall, I believe their reader advised them quite wisely.  They told me he reported that it was a philosophical work, little likely to be popular with a large circle of readers.  I hope that if I had been their reader, and the book had been submitted to myself, I should have advised them to the same effect.

“Erewhon” appeared with the last day or two of March 1872.  I attribute its unlooked-for success mainly to two early favourable reviews—­the first in the Pall Mall Gazette of April 12, and the second in the Spectator of April 20.  There was also another cause.  I was complaining once to a friend that though “Erewhon” had met with such a warm reception, my subsequent books had been all of them practically still-born.  He said, “You forget one charm that ‘Erewhon’ had, but which none of your other books can have.”  I asked what? and was answered, “The sound of a new voice, and of an unknown voice.”