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Title: Wyatt Earp : The Life Behind the Legend by Casey Tefertiller ISBN: 0-471-28362-2 Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Pub. Date: 25 February, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.46 (26 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: An Outstanding Read
Comment: This is one of the most interesting books I've ever read! The book is very well researched and is not written to do anything but present the facts as well as they can be unearthed through the records that exist. If you have an interest in history, particularly this era; I highly recommend this book.
Rating: 5
Summary: The closest to the truth I've found
Comment: I am an avid fan of this era, specificly Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, Bat Masterson, to name a few. Each and every one tells a completely different tale. However, it was refreshing to read material that was well researched, references documented and cataloged.
The print is smaller than normal, and tends to tire the eyes, but is a very good read. It was a bit disappointing at times to read that this hero/legend/mythical person actually had flaws, however very refreshing to be told, yes, he was a human being.
You are left to draw your own conclusions, having been given all the sides of each tale. You can't help but feel as though despite his shortcomings, he was an exceptionaly great man.
The ending is a bit sad, however the end result as we see things today are very positive. Anyone who enjoys this era, these heros if you will, should definetly read this one. If you've seen the movie "Tombstone" with Kurt Russell/Val Kilmer, it's like they compliment each other. Gives the movie some validity even though there are a few flaws. Excellent read.
Rating: 3
Summary: Incontestably a Rehash
Comment: I noticed the Amazon sales record on this book of 20,000 some, which is respectable for any book, especially on a Western subject, and re-examined my opinion of it. I concluded that the title is one of its major elements of success: there is that positive suggestion of mystery, "the man behind" etc. Another element, of course, is the name Wyatt Earp itself, which is sales gold. For example, Wyatt's wife's memoir: I MARRIED WYATT EARP, is selling for twice the price of this book, and doing so over a quarter of a century after it was first published, and is rated under 100,000.
It is, therefore, pertinent to the public to know what this book may really be in addition to what it suggests. It certainly had gathered in one source everything in secondary sources that had been published up until the time it was written. Unfortunately, much of the obvious debt to other writers is not reflected in footnotes. For example, as in the case of Paula Mitchell Marks as well, this writer takes as a given "not only the discovery of fire and the wheel" but "the commonplace existence of electricity", so to say. In specific terms, this author, who refers to I MARRIED WYATT EARP on the WEB as the Hitler Diaries, despite his own use of its major source, the actual manuscript memoir of Mrs. Wyatt Earp, also seems unaware that characters he takes for granted were discovered through the research of the so-called "collector and editor" of I MARRIED WYATT EARP, most years ago. Thus we find people who were only names, or shadowy misrepresented figures, often with incorrect photo of them accepted as bonafide, in this book, fleshed out with the original research that uncovered them, without a scintilla of evidence of the source material. This certainly faults the book's methodology, and raises questions about either the objectivity or thoroughness of the author, both factors that should make the reader wary of accepting the author's conclusions.
There are also gross errors of fact, such as acceptance of a diary of Adelia Earp that the author should have known was a fabrication by a hoaxer, and not only that, but I don't know a single person aside from the author, and perhaps his editor, who thinks the "rare photo find" of Wyatt Earp that is the frontispiece (uncaptioned) is actually Wyatt Earp.
This is a book of potentially great value as a compendium to save a new Earp fan time in getting on board about the major accepted facts (as distinguished from alleged facts) but that reader, if serious, would be forced to consult the collected sources anyhow, to keep from being led astray. Unfortunately, that is not self-evident, and even it were, those sources would remain to be ferreted out, since they are not acknowledged as they would have been in an objective work.
This is definitely not an author who wants readers to decide for themselves and if they do it should not be based on his work alone. If based on a wide array of sources as appears desirable in this case, the readers' conclusion is not apt to result in elevating this author to the status of a respected authority, in my opinion.
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Title: Doc Holliday: A Family Portrait by Karen Holliday Tanner, Robert K. Dearment ISBN: 0806133201 Publisher: Univ of Oklahoma Pr (Trd) Pub. Date: March, 2001 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: I Married Wyatt Earp: The Recollections of Josephine Sarah Marcus Earp by Glenn G. Boyer ISBN: 0816505837 Publisher: Historical Research Associates Pub. Date: August, 1976 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Tombstone : An Iliad of the Southwest (Historians of the Frontier and American West Series) by Walter Noble Burns ISBN: 0826321542 Publisher: University of New Mexico Press Pub. Date: June, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Doc Holliday by Jim Myers, John M. Myers ISBN: 0803257813 Publisher: Univ of Nebraska Pr Pub. Date: January, 2002 List Price(USD): $8.89 |
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Title: And Die in the West: The Story of the O.K. Corral Gunfight by Paula Mitchell Marks ISBN: 0806128887 Publisher: Univ of Oklahoma Pr (Trd) Pub. Date: September, 1996 List Price(USD): $17.28 |
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