Finding Pieces of the Puzzle

Most accounts of Rochester's life are as sensational as Dr. Johnson's. Sometimes it seems as no one is able to piece together the story of Rochester in an objective and logical manner. Graham Greene, one of the twentieth-century biographers of Rochester has described the troubles thus:
At the time of his marriage Rochester was nearly twenty; only thirteen years of life were left him, years which are very difficult for the biographer to chronicle. They are full of fantastic stories and impersonations—some, like that of Alexander Bendo, the quack doctor, well authenticated, others, like the mock-tinker of Barford, purely legendary.[...] These years cannot be followed chronologically, dates are too often the subject of speculation; it is as if all those years were clouded by the fumes of drink.