1882, William Edward Winks.

We just scanned it. It will be released into Dis­trib­uted Proof­read­ers as soon as the copy­right clear­ance is available.

I can­not explain to you why such a thing has been done. Nei­ther my scan­ning of the work, nor my wife’s request via the tor­tu­ous Inter­li­brary Loan sys­tem at the AADL, nor Mr. Winks’s orig­i­nal notion to write a mul­ti­ple biog­ra­phy of men who made shoes.

I can­not.

Nor can I explain why the work is so well known. I’ve seen com­moner books with fewer Google hits.

But above every­thing else—above the won­der of the book’s exis­tence, above the ques­tion of why we have sought it out and pre­served it, above the impli­ca­tions to the mem­ory of the world—I won­der whether Mr. Winks would, to his peers, have been con­sid­ered a small man. Was he slight? Of unim­pos­ing stature? Per­haps of boy­ish frame?

Was he wee?