He apparently interviewed distinguished criminals in Newgate, and extracted from them the stories of their lives.

Part of what he thus gathered he communicated to _Applebee_; sometimes, when the notoriety of the case justified it, he drew up longer narratives and published them separately as pamphlets.

He was an adept in the art of puffing his own productions, whether books or journals.

It may be doubted whether any American editor ever mastered this art more thoroughly than Defoe.

Nothing, for instance, could surpass the boldness of Defoe's plan for directing public attention to his narrative of the robberies and escapes of Jack Sheppard.