<\/a><\/span>The first two editions were good-sized coffee table books, measuring 10 inches by 12 inches. The new edition is an inch larger in each direction, so the photographs and text are larger as well, with some pictures getting one and a half to two page spreads.<\/p>\n

The first book was 140 pages, the second 148, the third 164. The third edition includes a new foreword by Anne Wilkes Tucker, curator emeritus of photography at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and two pages of acknowledgements by author and photographer Wilson. All three editions include the original introduction by Pulitzer Prize\u2013winning historian David McCullough.<\/span><\/p>\n

Wilson\u2019s original text, written when Matthews was 90, has not been changed, so you get the feeling from reading the text and looking at the photographs that he is still very much alive. And in spirit, perhaps that is the case. Certainly, his hometown of Albany, which he called \u201ca little town with big ways,\u201d continue to feel his influence at the Old Jail Art Center, Fandangle, Matthews Memorial Presbyterian Church, Lambshead Ranch, and more.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a world of big men heavy enough to throw a steer to the ground or hold a struggling 1,100-pound horse,\u201d Wilson wrote back in 1989, \u201cWatt Matthews (five feet, six and a half inches tall) has never had the automatic respect that comes with size. His authority comes from meeting things head on, just as his father did. His beliefs are clear. His moral compass is true. And everyone agrees that if you want to know what he thinks, you\u2019re going to find out when you ask him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watt was the youngest of nine children born to John \u201cBud\u201d Matthews and Sallie Reynolds Matthews. His mother wrote the book Interwoven: A Pioneer Chronicle, still regarded as one of the best books ever written about life on the Texas frontier. The Matthews family came to West Texas in 1858 and the Reynolds family in 1859. \u201cThe Matthews and Reynolds families,\u201d Wilson continued, \u201cwere among a handful of people who had the will to stay on the edge of nowhere and build an industry out of hide and horn.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watt graduated from Princeton University in 1921 and maintained close ties with the university the rest of his life. \u201cUnlike so many talented Texans who left for other, less remote parts,\u201d Wilson wrote, \u201cWatt Matthews remained on the land, compelled to continue what his father and grandfather had begun. He seems to always have known where he belonged.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new edition of Watt Matthews of Lambshead ensures that his story lives on, twenty years after his passing.<\/p>\n

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