As a freelance writer, Brehm furnished
popular-scientific magazines with
essays and
travelogues. Because of his success in doing this, in 1860 he was commissioned to write a six-volume
zoological encyclopedia. Journeys to
Abyssinia,
Scandinavia and
Siberia both interrupted and enriched the work. The first six volumes of the encyclopedia, published under the title
Illustrirtes Thierleben, appeared from 1864 to 1869, published by the
Bibliographisches Institut under
Herrmann Julius Meyer. Illustrated under the direction of
Robert Kretschmer (1818–1872), they met with wide approval from the educated
bourgeoisie. As of the second edition, which consisted of ten volumes published from 1876 to 1879, the work was already titled
Brehms Tierleben. The work made Brehm famous around the world and its title is still a catchphrase today, even though science has gone far beyond Brehm. Perhaps the greatest change in the second edition was the addition of new illustrations by
Gustav Mützel, the brothers
August and
Friedrich Specht and others, which
Charles Darwin said were the best he had ever seen. The second edition was reprinted from 1882 to 1884, and a third edition, published from 1890 to 1893, followed. The work has been translated into various languages and remained very popular for generations. Editions continued to appear into the second half of the 20th century, sometimes in the form of abridged, one-volume works. == Note on the title ==