Produced by David Starner and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY ELKANAH SETTLE THE NOTORIOUS IMPOSTOR (1692) DIEGO REDIVIVUS (1692) Introduction by Spiro Peterson Publication Number 68 Los Angeles William Andrews Clark Memorial Library University of California GENERAL EDITORS RICHARD C. BOYS, _University of Michigan_ RALPH COHEN, _University of California, Los Angeles_ VINTON A. DEARING, _University of California, Los Angeles_ LAWRENCE CLARK POWELL, _Clark Memorial Library_ ASSISTANT EDITOR W. EARL BRITTON, _University of Michigan_ ADVISORY EDITORS EMMETT L. AVERY, _State College of Washington_ BENJAMIN BOYCE, _Duke University_ LOUIS BREDVOLD, _University of Michigan_ JOHN BUTT, KING'S COLLEGE, _University of Durham_ JAMES L. CLIFFORD, _Columbia University_ ARTHUR FRIEDMAN, _University of Chicago_ LOUIS A. LANDA, _Princeton University_ SAMUEL H. MONK, _University of Minnesota_ ERNEST C. MOSSNER, _University of Texas_ JAMES SUTHERLAND, _University College, London_ H. T. SWEDENBERG, JR., _University of California, Los Angeles_ CORRESPONDING SECRETARY EDNA C. DAVIS, _Clark Memorial Library_ INTRODUCTION The great English novel of the eighteenth century was developed out of the long established traditions in the essay, letter, religious treatise, biography and personal memoir. Although this influence has been generally acknowledged, the critical investigation of its exact nature has often been hampered by the lack of readily available texts. Especially is this true of the criminal biographies written in the late seventeenth century. The reprinting of Elkanah Settle's _The Notorious Impostor_ (Part One) and the anonymous _Diego Redivivus_ is thus justified as providing the means for the further study of the early fiction-writer's techniques. Published In 1692, the two pamphlets belong to a group of five closely-related narratives dealing with a real criminal named William Morrell. In the probable order of their publication, these were _Diego Redivivus_, _The Notorious Impostor_ (Part One), _The Second Part of the Notorious Impostor_, "_William Morrell's_ Epitaph" in _The Gentleman's Journal_, and _The Compleat Memoirs of the Life of that Notorious Impostor Will. Morrell_. The different accounts forcefully demonstrate how criminal fiction allied itself with both biography and the picaresque. In addition, _The Notorious Impostor_ serves as a representative work by Elkanah Settle whose criminal biographies have never received the attention they deserve.[1]