World history may or may not repeat itself, but personal biography certainly can. Back in 1986 I was asked to contribute a chapter on scientific creativity for a volume on the psychology of science. Although I accepted the invitation with gusto, I soon encountered an unexpected obstacle: The first draft of the chapter was many times larger than the page limitations allowed. Yet it contained lots of ideas that I was reluctant to cut. Moreover, I felt that the draft contained many half-baked ideas that needed more development. My response was to take full advantage of one of the miracles of word processing: I made a duplicate of the electronic file. The original version could be subjected to draconian edits until it reached the permissible length. In contrast, the other copy could be expanded until my ideas on scientific creativity got the attention I thought they deserved. The consequence of that expansion was not one long chapter but seven distinct chapters making up a book-length manuscript. In 1988 Cambridge University Press published this book with the title Scientific Genius: A Psychology of Science. Although the book chapter was completed first, it was not published until 1989 in another Cambridge book, The Psychology of Science: Contributions to Metascience, edited by Gholson, Shadish, Neimeyer, and Houts. The chapter, titled “The Chance-Configuration Theory of Scientific Creativity,” could be considered an abstract for the book.