The Caltech nuclear physicist William Alfred Fowler used his sabbatical leave to visit Hoyle in Cambridge from 1954 to 1955. The pair invited Margaret Burbidge and Geoffrey Burbidge to join them in Cambridge, as the couple had recently published extensive work on stellar abundances that would be required to test Hoyle's hypothesis. The quartet collaborated on several projects whilst in Cambridge; Fowler and Hoyle began work on a review that would become B FH. Fowler returned to Caltech with the work far from complete, and encouraged the Burbidges to join him in California. Both of the Burbidges had temporary positions created for them in 1956 at Caltech by Fowler for this purpose. The first complete draft was completed by the Burbidges in 1956 at Caltech, after adding extensive astronomical observations and experimental data to support the theory. Margaret Burbidge, the paper's first author, completed much of the work whilst pregnant. The final paper is 104 pages long, with 34 plots, 4 photographic plates, and 22 tables ; despite this length, it does not have an abstract.