Life of Alfred Newton - Professor of Comparative Anatomy, Cambridge University, 1866-1907 #265547

When in the spring of 1909 his literary executors paid me the compliment of asking me to write a "Life" of Professor Newton, I accepted the invitation with enthusiasm tempered by diffidence, little guessing the delays to which it would be subjected, and little knowing the difficulties of the task. It became very soon apparent that the interests of so sedentary a life as that of Newton must be looked for principally in his letters. This led to the startling discovery that he had kept almost every letter he received during a period of more than fifty years, and to the further fact that a great many of his correspondents had preserved almost every letter that he had written to them. Searching through these thousands of letters was a work of several months; and after that I was unavoidably occupied in New Guinea for a term of years. During these absences from England - and later during the war - I made attempts to induce others to complete the "Life," but without success.<br><br>So it was not until 1920 that I was able to return to it. In the meantime the business of producing books, like all other things, has suffered a change, and the ample biographies of the spacious days before 1914 are no longer possible.