For nearly 200 year after his death so little was known of Oliver Cromwell's personal views and motives that he was generally regarded as, in Hume's words, ©a hypocritical fanatic.© Carlyle's researches were sufficient to refute the charge of hypocrisy, but not until the beginning of the 20th century was a sufficient mass of documents and personal correspondence assembled to make possible a just and balanced account of Cromwell's life. Sir Charles Firth's biography, first published in 1900, presents such an account, and in the years that have passed since the book was written, it has become generally recognized as a standard work, soundly informative as history and worthy of preservation as literature.