 In 1937 Collingwood wrote The Principles of Art (1938); whilst correcting the proofs he suffered a stroke, the first of many to come. From this time onwards he was conscious that he was writing on borrowed time. His An Autobiography (1939) records his determination to put on record an account of the work he hoped to do but might not live to complete. During a recuperative voyage to the Dutch East Indies in 1938–9 he wrote An Essay on Metaphysics (1940) and began work on what he regarded as his magnum opus, The Principles of History (not published until 1995). In 1939 he sailed around the Greek islands with a group of Rhodes scholars studying at Oxford—a journey memorably recollected and evoked in The First Mate’s Log (1940). On his return to Oxford Collingwood lectured on moral and political philosophy and worked at The New Leviathan (1942) which he saw as his contribution to the war effort. He wrote the book against a background of increasingly debilitating strokes.