Alexander Wheelock Thayer's Life of Beethoven has long been regarded as the classic biography of Beethoven. Thayer's approach to biography was to present in chronological order the factual evidence concerning Beethoven, the man and his work, and to eliminate the analysis and aesthetic evaluation of the music. To gather the material necessary for such an undertaking, he went to Europe; there, he spent most of his life seeking out those persons still alive who had known Beethoven and studying the sources that were available. His biography succeeded in clearing away the romantic fiction that was then, in the 1870's, current and gave for the first time a full account of the composer's life which was based on reliable, historical method.