Billy the Kid : A Short and Violent Life - Softcover

Utley, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1860646018 ISBN 13: 9781860646010

Publisher: I B Tauris & Co Ltd, 2000

Synopsis

Outlaw, hoodlum and killer, and slain at the age of 21 by Pat Garrett - Billy the Kid has become one of the icons of America's Wild West. This account tells the story of his brief and bloody life.

About this title

About the Author:

One of the preeminent western historians writing today, Robert M. Utley is the author of High Noon in Lincoln: Violence on the Western Frontier, Cavalier in Buckskin: George Armstrong Custer and the Western Military Frontier and The Lance and the Shield: The Life and Times of Sitting Bull, as well as Frontier Regulars: The United States Army and the Indian, 1848–1865 (1984) and Frontiersmen in Blue: The United States Army and the Indian, 1866–1891 (1981) published by the University of Nebraska Press.

From Library Journal:

Most Americans are familiar with the legend of the outlaw William H. Bonney, better known as Billy the Kid. Utley, a noted historian of the Old West, has written a scholarly biography of the Kid, which--as does all good biography--incorporates the history of his times. Using interviews conducted with the Kid's contemporaries, Utley draws a portrait of a youth who, while not the bloodthirsty killer painted by newspapers of the period, was not a Western Robin Hood, either. Utley concludes: "Except in its final months . . . the Kid's career did not measure up to his reputation. Although a superb gunman and arresting personality, he was a quite ordinary outlaw . . . ." While Pat Garrett's The Authentic Life of Billy the Kid (Univ. of Oklahoma Pr., 1954. o.p.; 1986. pap.) is useful for its contemporary portrait, public and academic libraries serving clients with an interest in the period or the region will want this title.
- Sue Kamm, Los Angeles P.L.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: I B Tauris & Co Ltd
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 1860646018
• ISBN 13: 9781860646010
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304