On the Origin of Species to be expanded with his research results and published if he died prematurely. In November 1844, the anonymously published popular science book "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation", written by Scottish journalist Robert Chambers, widened public interest in the concept of transmutation of species. "Vestiges" used evidence from the fossil record and embryology to support the claim that living things had progressed from the simple to the more complex over time. But it proposed a linear progression rather than the branching common descent theory behind Darwin's work in progress, and it ignored adaptation. Darwin read it soon after publication,
On the Origin of Species be impossible." He asked Hooker how many pages would be available, but "If the Referees were to reject it as not strictly scientific I would, perhaps publish it as pamphet." He began his "abstract of Species book" on 20 July 1858, while on holiday at Sandown, and wrote parts of it from memory, while sending the manuscripts to his friends for checking. By early October, he began to "expect my abstract will run into a small volume, which will have to be published separately." Over the same period, he continued to collect information and write large fully detailed sections of