BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: The amount of literature, chiefly polemical in character, which has sprung up about the subject of the European Illuminati is astonishingly large. Wolfstieg, _Bibliographie der Freimaurerischen Literatur_, vol. ii, pp. 971–979, lists ninety-six separate titles of principal works, not counting translations, new editions, _etc._ In the same volume (pp. 979–982) he lists the titles of one hundred and fourteen “kleinere Schriften”. In addition, he also lists (_ibid._, p. 982) three titles of books occupied with the statutes of the order, and the titles of five principal works devoted to the order’s ritual (_ibid._, p. 983), together with the titles of nine smaller works likewise occupied (_ibid._). No student penetrates far into the study of the general topic without being made aware that not only were contemporary apologists and hostile critics stirred to a fierce heat of literary expression, but that a swarm of historians, mostly of inferior talents, have been attracted to the subject. In view of the thoroughgoing work which bibliographers like Wolfstieg have performed, no necessity arises to repeat the task. For the benefit of the student who may wish to acquaint himself at first hand with the principal sources of information respecting the order, the following abbreviated list has been compiled. For convenience the titles are grouped in three principal divisions. I. Apologetic writings. Weishaupt, _Apologie der Illuminaten_ Frankfort and Leipzig, 1786. “ _Vollständige Geschichte der Verfolgung der Illuminaten in Bayern, I_, Frankfort and Leipzig,1786. “ _Das verbesserte System der Illuminaten mit allen seinen Graden und Einrichtungen_, Frankfort and Leipzig, 1787. “ _Kurze Rechtfertigung meiner Absichten_, Frankfort and Leipzig, 1787. “ _Nachtrag zur Rechtfertigung meiner Absichten_, Frankfort and Leipzig, 1787. Bassus, _Vorstellung denen hohen Standeshäuptern der Erlauchten Republik Graubünden_, Nuremberg, 1788. Knigge, _Philo’s endliche Erklärung and Antwort auf verschiedene Anforderungen und Fragen_, Hanover, 1788. II. Documents of the order, published by the Bavarian government or otherwise, and hostile polemics.