After his return in 1823 from a voyage with Edward Sabine to West Africa and Brazil, George Don was dismissed from the Royal Horticultural Society in 1825 for violating an agreement not to publish an account of the plants and seeds he had collected. Despite this, Don continued to publish several significant works on botany and soon his ability was recognised and he was commissioned to prepare a general history of the subject with a catalogue of all plants then known. This work, A General System of Botany and Gardening, was published in four volumes between 1831 and 1838. The history was useful and extensive but a lack of interest (perhaps due to an increasing number of cheaper periodicals on the same subject) meant that it sold poorly and remained unfinished.