COWPER. Goldwin Smith. BYRON.. John Morley. STERNE... ADDISON........ COLERIDGE. Thomas Fowler .......... F. Myers. ........G. Saintsbury. . Sidney Colvin. .David Masson. .Alfred Ainger. .R. C. Jebb. .A. W. Ward. .E. W. Gosse. Leslie Stephen .....H. D. Traill. ..J. Cotter Morison. Austin Dobson. Mrs. Oliphant. W. J. Courthope. .R. W. Church. ...H. D. Traill. .Leslie Stephen. SIR PHILIP SIDNEY... J. A. Symonds. ..John Nichol. KEATS.. CARLYLE.... John Nichol. 12mo, Cloth, 75 cents per volume. Other volumes in preparation. . Sidney Colvin. PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. Any of the above works will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price. 3-4-3 PREFACE. THERE are three considerable biographies of Defoe-the first, by George Chalmers, published in 1786; the second by Walter Wilson, published in 1830; the third, by William Lee, published in 1869. All three are thorough and painstaking works, justified by independent research and discovery. The labour of research in the case of an author supposed to have written some two hundred and fifty separate books and pamphlets, very few of them under his own name, is naturally enormous; and when it is done, the results are open to endless dispute. Probably two men could not be found who would read through the vast mass of contemporary anonymous and pseudonymous print, and agree upon a complete list of Defoe's writings. Fortunately, however, for those who wish to get a clear idea of his life and character, the identification is not pure guess-work on internal evidence. He put his own name or initials to some of his productions, and treated the authorship of others as open secrets. Enough is ascertained as his to provide us with the means for a complete understanding of his opinions and his conduct. It is Defoe's |