The fame of the Reverend Walter William Skeat derives from his success in fulfilling his life's goal, which he avers in A Students Pastime (1896) was that of "rendering . . . help to my fellow creatures." Those "fellow creatures" have been generations of scholars benefiting from his leadership in establishing the study of English language and literature in the university, from his studies of place-names and etymology and especially from his indefatigable work as an editor of early English texts. Despite beginning his academic career as a mathematician or perhaps as an alternate display of a bent for "scientific" precision Skeat set new standards for the editing of Old and Middle English works. At the same time he produced the materials necessary for the growth of literary study as an academic disciplinein the form of dozens of newly available or newly reliable editions. Not a book collector on his own behalf...