Pauling arrived in Ithaca with his wife, Ava Helen, at the end of September 1936. It was the beginning of a four-month stay as the Baker Lecturer. They left their four young children in the care of friends, and spent their stay attending receptions, dinner parties, and making occasional forays into New York City to see the latest musicals or go dancing.

Pauling also worked hard preparing a detailed set of lecture notes for his presentations. But he had more in mind. He wanted the Baker series book that would result from the lectures to be more than the standard replay of what had been said at the podium. Freed from the daily chores of chairmanship at Caltech, he had plenty of time to expand his notes into a major project he had wanted to complete for some time: a summary of all his ideas on the chemical bond. The Baker Lectures would be a starting point, but the resulting books would be more far-reaching, more comprehensive. He worked on the manuscript, writing it by hand, through the months of their stay at Cornell, then expanded it through 1938 after returning to Caltech.