Only 29 inches tall, Matthias Buchinger’s accomplishments were gigantic (new book by Ricky Jay)

See sample pages from this book at Wink.

When Matthias Buchinger was born in 1674, he arrived without arms or legs. As an adult, he was under 2.5 feet tall. He lived to the age of 65, outliving three wives (his fourth wife outlived him, and he was rumored to have as many as 70 mistresses), and he sired 14 children. Most remarkably, Buchinger was an accomplished artist, magician, sharpshooter, and calligrapher. Buchinger's specialty was micrography: the art of writing tiny letters. He was famous throughout Europe. According to Wikipedia, "Buchinger's fame was so widespread that in the 1780s the term 'Buckinger's boot' existed in England as a euphemism for the vagina (because the only 'limb' he had was his penis)."

The author of Matthias Buchinger: "The Greatest German Living" is Ricky Jay, a famous magician, performer, historian of unusual performers, and writer. Jay's biography of the extraordinary Buchinger includes many reproductions of Buchinger's exacting pen and ink drawings, which he made holding a pen in his small fin-like appendages. Jay is a longtime collector of Buchinger original art, and this book includes several entertaining chapters about Jay's personal interest in collecting Buchinger's work and his interactions with other Buchinger-philes.