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.

Originally published in 1926, this biography tells the rousing tale of Billy the Kid, once of the most well known outlaws in the Old West. The Saga of Billy the Kid focuses on a period of time where two dangerous gangs tore a bloody path across Lincoln, New Mexico. After being shot to death in 1881 by the intrepid Lincoln County sheriff Pat Garret, Billy the Kid became a romanticized symbol of the wildness that laced the American west. Interest in the outlaw’s wild life grew after Burn’s initial publication, setting Billy the Kid up as one of the finest examples of the loss of the Wild West. As the US grew more industrialized, the stories of saloons, train robberies, and lone cowboys became even more important, and still remain important today. In a rousing tale that is partly truth, partly fiction, read the story that started its own wild frontier in the most influential version out there.

One of the great folk legends of the Wild West, William H. Bonney went from cowboy and rancher's gunslinger to a pure outlaw, forever dodging justice in New Mexico before it was even a state. On the one hand, he was charming, fun-loving, often present at social events, quite appealing to the ladies. Also conversant in Spanish, "Billito" was popular with the Spanish speaking crowd. On the other hand, he had no compunction to coldly kill a man, a sheriff, a deputy—anyone who got in the way of his rustling cattle or horses for an illicit living. He also proved hard to keep in jail once he was caught. It is probably his daring escapes from jails that made him most famous, and this is the main subject of this biography, which traces his story up through his death by a gunshot in the pitch darkness, fired by lawmen obsessed with getting rid of him.

This tour de force of western scholarship, a revised and expanded version of Tuska's Billy the Kid: A Bio-Bibliography, adds ten year's worth of scholarship to the earlier effort. Tuska provides a carefully documented biography of the Kid; bibliographical essays on historical scholarship, fiction, films, and cultural criticism; and a chronology of his life and death. Tuska's careful scholarship and analysis of sources refutes the mythical embellishments that have surrounded Billy the Kid. He concludes that in order for such a legend to arise, it is necessary for a historical character to have qualities that permit ambiguous interpretations of his behavior. "A model for others who would study legendary heroes of the American West". -- Choice "Anyone interested in Western outlaws will find this handsomely illustrated volume indispensable". -- Los Angeles Herald Examiner