James W. (James Wideman) Lee

Born in Georgia in 1849, James Wideman Lee became a well-known American Methodist clergyman and author. Library of Congress and University of Pennsylvania records identify him as the writer of books including The Making of a Man, Henry W. Grady, The Geography of Genius, and The Illustrated History of Methodism.

Contemporary and memorial sources describe him as a prominent churchman who was ordained in the 1870s and served at St. John's Church in St. Louis, where he built a wide reputation as a preacher. His writing often aimed to bring moral reflection, history, and religion to a broad audience in a clear, practical way.

Lee died in 1919, but his books still give a lively sense of the religious and literary culture of his era. For listeners interested in thoughtful nonfiction from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, his work offers a mix of encouragement, biography, travel, and popular religious history.