The reader may, in confidence, be told that no biography of Josiah Warren has hitherto been written. When the present writer set himself the task, a quarter of a century had elapsed since Warren's death. Most of the people who had known him personally had also paid the final debt of nature. Of those remaining, most had known him only in his latter years. It became necessary, therefore, to conduct an independent investigation in order to obtain the requisite data at first hand. Contemporary sources of information were sought and found to be most fruitful. In this way everything told of his career has been verified. Files of newspapers have been consulted as far back as 1825. A number of highly interesting papers, pamphlets, patents, and other documents relating to Warren, now in the possession of the New Harmony Work ingmen's Institute, were kindly loaned by the Librarian. Almost the whole literature of American communities and socialistic experi ments has been read for facts bearing on the.