Lot 97
Garden City Publishing Co., Inc., Garden City, New York., 1926. Hardcover. 322pp. Illustrated end papers. One of The Star Series. Copyright held by Doubleday. Walter Noble Burns (1866-1932) was a writer of Western history and a Western fiction author. He was notable for his book, The Saga of Billy the Kid (1926). Walter Noble Burns served with the 1st Kentucky Infantry during the Spanish-American War in 1898. In 1900, he moved to Chicago, Illinois and began a career as a journalist, literary critic and crime reporter. After World War I, Burns retired as a reporter, then concentrated his writing about Western American legends. 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, NM, between 1878 and 1881. Burns paints the Kid as a 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 Burn's Saga of Billy the Kid kindled a fascination in Billy the Kid that survives to this day. Historian Richard W. Etulain's has written about the singular importance of Saga in the historical literature on Billy the Kid. Billy the Kid (born Henry McCarty; September 17 or November 23, 1859 - July 14, 1881), also known by the pseudonym William H. Bonney, was an Irish-American outlaw and gunfighter of the American Old West who killed eight men before he was shot and killed at the age of 21. He also fought in New Mexico's Lincoln County War, during which he allegedly committed three murders. McCarty was orphaned at the age of 15. His first arrest was for stealing food, at the age of 16, in late 1875. Ten days later, he robbed a Chinese laundry and was again arrested, but escaped shortly afterwards. He fled from New Mexico Territory into neighboring Arizona Territory, making him both an outlaw and a federal fugitive. In 1877, McCarty began to refer to himself as "William H. Bonney". Two different versions of a wanted poster dated September 23, 1875, refer to him as "Wm. Wright, better known as Billy the Kid". After murdering a blacksmith during an altercation in August 1877, McCarty became a wanted man in Arizona and returned to New Mexico, where he joined a group of cattle rustlers. He became well-known in the region when he joined the Regulators and took part in the Lincoln County War of 1878. McCarty and two other Regulators were later charged with killing three men, including Lincoln County Sheriff William J. Brady and one of his deputies. McCarty's notoriety grew in December 1880 when the Las Vegas Gazette in Las Vegas, New Mexico, and The Sun in New York City carried stories about his crimes. Sheriff Pat Garrett captured McCarty later that month. In April 1881, McCarty was tried and convicted of Brady's murder, and was sentenced to hang in May of that year. He escaped from jail on April 28, killing two sheriff's deputies in the process and evading capture for more than two months. Garrett shot and killed McCarty, by then age 21, in Fort Sumner on July 14, 1881. During the following decades, legends grew that McCarty had survived, and a number of men claimed to be him. Billy the Kid remains one of the most notorious figures from the era, whose life and likeness have been frequently dramatized in Western popular culture. Edward Borein (1872-1945) was an American etcher and painter from California. His artwork depicted Spanish Colonial California, the Old West, and Mexico. Borein began his career as a cowboy in the 1893. Please ask specific questions on details, condition, and shipping prior to bidding, ALL ITEMS ARE SOLD AS IS, and the bidder will be responsible for payment. We box and ship what we can to keep costs low, and use USPS and UPS. Large items, extremely fragile, and high value items will be packed by UPS. Quotes available on request
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Dimensions:
- 5.75" x 8.5" Condition:
- Excellent Condition with no missing or torn pages.
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