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.