By Russell's own account Principles of Social Reconstruction made its appearance as an unexpected event; as with other aspects of his life and work he declined to accord it a history, preferring to see in it a variant of revelation or an example of authentic creativity in the Romantic tradition: ‘During the summer of 1915 I wrote Principles of Social Reconstruction … I had no intention of writing such a book and it was totally unlike anything I had previously written, but it came out in a spontaneous manner. In fact I did not discover what it was all about until I had finished it.’ Russell here seems to be confusing two distinct phases in his work on the book, for what he wrote in the summer of 1915 was merely an outline presented to D.H. Lawrence as a basis for their collaboration on a series of lectures. In the event, this initial exercise – although couched in terms calculated to appeal – failed to please, and the manuscript was returned resembling a piece of shoddy homework. Russell was at this time fated to suffer at the hands of former and future schoolmasters, and Lawrence's ‘Don't be angry that I have scribbled all over your work’ recalls Wittgenstein's bland apology for his devastating criticisms of 1913: ‘I am very sorry to hear that my objection to your theory of judgement paralyses you.’