Beyond Belief

John Coetzee (the Nobel Prize winner and author of Foe)

I have read your Defoe biography and have found it a real eye-opener- congratulations. As for the blackmailing of Defoe by Elisabeth White and her father, you certainly make out a persuasive case for it, and more generally for a highly-coded reading of Defoe’s fictions.

Library Journal

It offers informed speculations… based on a careful and exhaustive examination of the record… Martin’s speculations on how Defoe’s sexuality affected his life is one of the book’s most persuasive aspects, this reading of Defoe’s novels is a breath of fresh air.

The Man Himself: A life of Johnathan Swift

Edward, O'Hare, Politico

The Man Himself is one of those rare biographies where the subject comes across so vividly you can almost hear their heartbeat rising from its page… this is an erudite accomplished and hugely enjoyable biography of one of the world’s true giants.

The Man Who Never Was

Professor Kevin Barry

The contribution made by John Martin is fundamental… the book provides documentary evidence in support of a hypothesis that Defoe was born in 1644 a full fifteen years earlier than is generally accepted… this study offers scholars fresh evidence for a re-reading of Defoe’s life and work.

Professor Irving Rothman

Martin’s originality lies in his challenge of traditional scholarship, in his ordering of a mass of archival findings, in his insistence upon the verities that grant real-life etiologies to the behaviour and motivation of fictional characters.

Dr James Canton

A re-visioning of Defoe which asserts that our framework of knowledge concerning Defoe requires a fundamental overhaul.

Author biography

John Martin is an English novelist and biographer. Like Defoe he was brought up in Essex. He has written widely on politics, finance and business.

John has a BSc Econ (Hons) from the London School of Economics, where he specialised in International History, and an MA in Life Writing from the University of East Anglia. He has worked as a business consultant and has managed companies in Britain, Germany, Japan and the USA.

He is best described as a research-based biographer. He has used his research skills to discover original material about Defoe in numerous archives in several countries. In recent years he has published two novels and four works on Defoe and Jonathan Swift.

He is married to Larisa Kleymenova, and lives and works in Norwich.