The Saga Of Billy The Kid

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.

"This might be the best Billy the Kid book to date." —Fritz Thompson, Albuquerque Journal In this revisionist biography, award-winning historian Michael Wallis re-creates the rich anecdotal saga of Billy the Kid (1859–1881), a young man who became a legend in his time and remains an enigma to this day. In an extraordinary evocation of the legendary Old West, Wallis demonstrates why the Kid has remained one of our most popular folk heroes. Filled with dozens of rare images and period photographs, Billy the Kid separates myth from reality and presents an unforgettable portrait of this brief and violent life.

Author, Gale Cooper's Billy and Paulita: The Saga of Billy the Kid, Paulita Maxwell, and the Santa Fe Ring, in hardcover and paperback, 658 pages, is a literary milestone, using research of 40,000 pages of archival documents and books, analysis of the historic sites, and expert consultants to bring to life the tragedy of Billy Bonney's star-crossed romance with the young, land grant heiress, Paulita Maxwell, and the lost Lincoln County War freedom fight against the deadly Santa Fe Ring; which branded him the outlaw "Billy the Kid," and killed him as the last of its adversaries.

Traces the brief and violent life of the outlaw who gained notoriety throughout the West

Many years after the death of Billy the Kid, Deputy John William Poe, who was just outside the door when Sheriff Pat Garrett killed Billy, wrote out the whole story, which was published in a small edition. While certain statements made in the book by Poe are controversial, his account is a valuable document for anyone interested in Billy the Kid.

Examines the career of the young outlaw whose life and death were an expression of the violence prevalent on the American frontier.

In 1882 a notorious outlaw and a childhood friend of Billy the Kid was released from prison where he had been serving time for killing a Texas Ranger. His freedom finally secured, the outlaw disappeared and was never heard from again. Never, that is, until 1948 when he came out of hiding after almost 70 years. In the course of proving his identity to a court of law the outlaw revealed that his friend Billy the Kid was not killed by Pat Garrett but was still alive even to that day. After a period of research and persistence the young lawyer was finally led to a destitute old man in Texas who was named not William H. Bonney but William H. Roberts, although Bonney had been an alias that he had used. Roberts agreed to reveal himself as Billy the Kid if the lawyer would help him obtain a pardon so he could die a free man. You see, the Kid was still wanted for murder so to come forward was to risk being sentenced and put to death, but this was a risk that William H. Roberts was willing to take. He told his story only one time, to one man. This is his story, now presented for the first time with new photographic evidence and research that supports his claim that he was the one true Billy the Kid of legend.