Originally planning to write four volumes, Carlyle realized that he would need six, as the first two only took the history to 1740 and the death of Frederick's father Frederick William I. After the 1858 journey he expressed hope that the book would be finished in two years, but it ended up taking seven. The third volume appeared in 1862, the fourth in 1864, and last two in 1865. Carlyle was seventy years old when he finished and had acquired a tremor in his writing hand.[10]