wrote My Secret Life, presumably weaving fantasy and anecdotes from friends in with his own real-life experiences. If Ashbee was not the actual author, it is suggested that he may well have been the compiler of the work's lengthy, detailed, and very imperfect index, and have provided other editorial assistance and help in getting the book into print. On the other hand, Steven Marcus, in his influential The Other Victorians (1966), concluded that the balance of known facts was against Legman's "shrewd and ingenious guess." Also unconvinced were Phyllis and Eberhard Kronhausen in their detailed study of My Secret Life, Walter, the English Casanova (1967). A number of other men have been suggested as more likely to be the author, including: William Simpson Potter (1805-1879), a known associate of Ashbee, was put forward by Gordon Grimley in his introduction to the 1972 edition of My Secret Life. Grimley is sceptical of Ashbee's candidacy as the main author. According to Ashbee, Potter was involved in authoring The Romance of Lust, an erotic work centred on incest and a range of sexual encounters. Charles Stanley, a barrister and stockbroker, was put forward in 2000 by Vern Bullough and Gordon Stein as the most likely candidate, the known facts of whose life best coincide with the internal evidence of the work. "Walter" claimed to be a close friend of the barrister in a famous case of the time, which they identify as the case of R v Richard Clarke in 1854. That barrister, William Overend QC, was a childhood friend of Stanley. William Haywood (1821-1894), who was Surveyor and Engineer to the City of London Commissioners of Sewers was suggested by John Patrick Pattinson in 2002 after extensive research. Veracity The question of how much the book is a record of true experiences (whether of Ashbee or another writer), and how much is fiction or erotic fantasy can probably never be fully resolved. However, the presence of much mundane detail, the writer's inclusion of incidents that do him little personal credit, and the lack of intrinsically improbable circumstances (in contrast to most Victorian erotica) lend it considerable credibility. In spite of "Walter's" obsessive womanising over a period of several decades, only a few of his partners are of his own social class. The great majority are prostitutes, servants or working class women. This would appear to reflect the realities of his time. Internal