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The Saga of Billy the Kid (Historians of the Frontier and American West Series)
by Walter Noble Burns (Introduction: Richard W. Etulain)
Product Group: Book
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press (1999-09-01)
ISBN: 0826321534
EAN: 9780826321534
Dewy Decimal #: 364.1552092
Paperback: 340 pages
Edition: 1
SKU: T070819-5907
Condition: Good
Comments: Good overall condition. No writing, tight binding. Ships same day or next in a bubble mailer. Enjoy.
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
First published in 1926, this entertaining and dramatic biography forever installed outlaw Billy the Kid in the pantheon of mythic heroes from the Old West and is still considered the single most influential portrait of Billy in this century. Saga focuses on the Kid's life and experiences in the bloody war between the Murphy-Dolan and Tunstall-McSween gangs in and around Lincoln, New Mexico, between 1878 and 1881. Burns paints the Kid as a boyish Robin Hood or romantic knight galvanized into a life of crime and killing by the war's violence and bloodshed. Billy represented the romantic and anarchic Old West that the march of civilization was rapidly displacing. His destroyer was Pat Garrett, the courageous sheriff of Lincoln County. Garrett's shooting of Billy in 1881 hastened the closing of the American frontier. Walter Noble Burns's Saga of Billy the Kid kindled a fascination in Billy the Kid that survives to this day. Richard W. Etulain's foreword discusses the singular importance of Saga in the historical literature on Billy the Kid and the Lincoln County War.
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Customer Reviews
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Wonderful verbally illustrative of life in the late 1800's.
Rating  (4)
Date: 2007-11-26
Walter Noble Burns did tremendous research under the difficulty of so many deceased witnesses. His prose of descriptive scenes and events was as interestng as were the happenings themselves. His writing in the early 1920's style adds much to the reader with historical interest. I can not imagine one with such interest not thinking the book is wonderful. For those that like to learn via Hollywood, TV, or Video, it probably will be less attractive reading.
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The basic Billy book
Rating  (3)
Date: 2005-03-06
2 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
This, of course, is the Billy the Kid biography that all later ones have had to nod toward, either in sympathy or contempt. By modern standards it violates most rules of popular history, with its many "reconstructed" conversations and events, which had no living witnesses shortly after the fact. However, Burns did manage to conduct long, direct interviews with many still-living participants, something later historians could not hope to do.
Historians tend to be either strongly pro- or anti-Billy, and it is interesting that this 1925 narrative hews to a sort of neutral line, depicting both the positive and negative aspects of the Kid's character. The early Kid biography supposedly written by Pat Garrett himself already depicts the Kid as a dime-novel superhero; by contrast, Nelson Nye's somewhat later historical novel, A BULLET FOR BILLY THE KID, typically depicts the Kid as a cowardly, psychopathic monster without a single redeeming human feature. Historians also tend to be violently pro- or anti-Dolan-Murphy, Burns comes down very much on the anti-Dolan-Murphy side, which is the side most more recent historians have also come down on. Burns also spends more time on the background of John Chisum than most Kid historians have tended to do.
Well worth your reading time if you have any interest in the most famous "outlaw" of the Old West.
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A Wonderful Look Into A Short Life!!
Rating (4)
Date: 2002-03-31
5 out of 5 customers found this reveiw helpful
Billy the Kid is one of the West's most famous outlaws, yet there is little in the history books to detail his short but very violent life. In addition, most of what has been written has been written in the later part of the 20th century and relies not so much on true knowledge as on what can be found here and there.This book, original written in 1924, is wonderful because the author actually found people still alive who had known Billy the Kid and who had lived through the Lincoln County Wars. While these people were hardly young when interviewed, they still had very good memories of Billy and his life style. This provides a look that is often missing in history. One area that was missing was any detailed information on the early life of Billy the Kid, but, as the author points out, much was lost and may never be known. The language in the book is, at times, difficult to process, as it was written in the style prevalent in 1924, not 2002. And it is a language that is caught between the older American English and modern American English. Generally it is a smooth read, but does have a couple of rough spots. This is a MUST READ if you really want to know about the portion of Billy the Kids life that ocured during the Linclon County Wars!!
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WLATER NOBLES BURNS HAS WRITTEN AN ALL-TIME WETS CLASSIC!
Rating (4)
Date: 1997-03-11
6 out of 10 customers found this reveiw helpful
THIS IS TRULY A WORK OF ART. HE BEGINS WITH THE RIVALRY BETWEEN JOHN CHIUSUM AND MAJOR A.G. MURPHY AND THE WAR THAT ESCALETS FROM THEIR RIVALRY. IT INTRODUCES WILLIAM BONNEY AS AN INNOCENT MAN WHO'S LOVE/RESPECT FOR HIS BOSS LEADS HIM TO HIS LEGENDARY LIFE AND DEATH. WRITTEN WITH PRECISE DETAIL AND ARRESTING INTENSITY.. A MUST HAVE
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