The document’s official title didn’t exactly pop: “Communication From Kenneth W. Starr, Independent Counsel, Transmitting a Referral to the United States House of Representatives Filed in Conformity With the Requirements of Title 28, United States Code, Section 595(c).” But immediately upon its September 11, 1998, release, it was universally rebranded The Starr Report and became a runaway best seller.

Publishers panic-rushed at least 1.5 million copies to bookstores. (Because the report was a government document, anybody could reprint and sell it without having to pay for intellectual-property rights.) The Starr Report doubled first-day sales of Tom Clancy’s wildly popular novel Rainbow Six — and it spurred a collateral spike in demand for Leaves of Grass, the Walt Whitman

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