Wyatt earp biography books

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Wyatt earp biography books: A Wyatt Earp Anthology: Long May

Katherine Addison. Author 20 books 3, followers. First, some criticisms: Tefertiller is not as good a writer as Gary L. Roberts ; in particular, his paragraph structure and organization are dreadful. And I could do without the occasional sententiousness. He also does not seem to be as good a historian as Roberts. Particularly in discussing Wyatt Earp's life in Kansas i.

It's not, to be clear, the inclusion of those stories I object to; it's Tefertiller's decision, having admitted the sketchiness of the evidence, to proceed as if there was certainty they occurred. It also irritates me that Tefertiller lines up the Earp boys--Newton, James, Virgil, Wyatt, Morgan, Warren--but does not even mention the existence of Earp girls until, around the time Wyatt was leaving Arizona in a hurry, Tefertiller records him deeding some of his property to his sister.

And, of course, the myth about Ike Clanton marrying "Jessie Earp.

Wyatt earp biography books: Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal (, by

Wyatt executing some sort of legal shenanigan or b. In a nutshell, then, my criticism of Tefertiller is that he does not organize his facts and his fictions as well as he could, and he is sometimes unclear about the difference between them. On the other hand, there are a lot of things about this biography which I wyatt earp biography books. He digs into the disreputable parts of Wyatt's life and attempts in his rather clumsy prose to explain the Vendetta without trying to excuse it.

He does an excellent job of explaining the background of the infamous gunfight: why the Cow-Boys were a very serious problem they were coming close to inciting a war with Mexico, that's whywhy people on various sides reacted the way they did, why it came to seem necessary to Wyatt Earp that he take the law into his own hands Tefertiller doesn't have much use for Johnny Behan, either.

And although he's bad about letting possible fiction stand for fact in relation to Dodge City and Wichita, he's very good about tracking the misinformation that Tombstone exudes like a skunk exudes stink: who started which lie, when and if possible, which frequently it isn't why. I have to quote director Raoul Walsh's account of the meeting because it makes me itch for a time machine and a video camera.

It needs a little set-up: it'sand Wyatt has wandered up to Hollywood with Jack London yes, that Jack London, whom he knew in Alaskaand they're talking with Welsh who is digging hard for stories, although "neither wanted to talk about himself" when Chaplin comes over: When I introduced my guests, he viewed Earp with evident awe. Tamed the baddies, huh?

You almost made me go to Alaska and dig for gold. Although I still don't like Wyatt Earp very much, I like him better than I did before reading this biography. Tefertiller's thesis is that it wasn't Wyatt telling the self-serving lies that so incensed me when I was reading Doc Holliday: The Life and Legendit was Sadie. And each and every one of Wyatt's co-authors and interviewers.

Wyatt was trying to tell the truth. I'm a little skeptical, but I'll go along. He was a man convinced of his own rectitude, which I never find appealing, but Tefertiller shows that he was also a man doing his best, flawed though that best might be. And even if I don't like him, I sympathize with him and I understand why he thought he had to do what he did.

Which shows that this is a good biography. I really enjoyed it.

Wyatt earp biography books: Wyatt Earp: The Life Behind

Tefertiller is generally frank and objective, clearly not carried away by the mythologized portrait of Mr. As best I can tell, in real life the Gun Fight at the O. Corral was a gang fight. Because of the excessive romanticization done in the above mentioned movies, the work of any serious biography of Wyatt Earp is to de-romanticize a story that shouldn't be romanticized.

This biography does that, while striving to give a balanced portrayal of the real humans who played out a tragically unfortunate event in the old West. This was just too hard to read. It is full of interesting facts, but I think I could only read it as a reference book, not straight through. I really wanted to see how much of the book "Doc" was true to life, but this book barely touched on Dodge and moved right to Tombstone.

Maybe someday I will try it again, but after I gave up, I skimmed through to find exciting parts and was disappointed. The life of Wyatt Earp was exciting, but the book didn't excite me. It is also a confusing book at places, but then Wyatt's life was "confusing. The bottom line is that some events, such as the shootout, will never been absolutely documented or clear.

If the participants couldn't exactly tell what happened how can anyone else? Interestingly, Wyatt say himself more of a gambler than a lawman. Though he had a long and more-or-less steady job as a lawman, he ran faro, gambled, mined, and invested. In one San Francisco US census, he lisgted his profession as capitalist. I had no idea of the repercussions--Wyatt being charged with murder, the preliminary hearing that exonerated him in a wayand triggered a bloody vendetta between The Earps, Ike Clanton, and other cowboys.

The term cowboy--or cow-boy--itself was a disparaging term for cattle rustlers thieves, and killers. Who knew that Tombstone had bowling allies and ice cream parlors?

Wyatt earp biography books: Wyatt Earp: A Biography

Who knew that the entire Earp-Clanton affair were rooted in politics and newspaper wars? I found the last part of the book particularly fascinating. Earp in middle age. His mining exploits in Alaska, gambling in LA and SF, referring a controversial wyatt earp biography books championship boxing match, and his impoverished death in a one-room flat in downtown LA.

The young John Ford and John Wayne met Wyatt while working in props, and John Wayne said he based his western characters on the Wyatt he had met in person and his stories at the time. Ultimately, Wyatt Earp is a study in what happens when class American justice hits the fan when no justice can be found. Tefertiller massively documents his book, and I can't imagine a better bio coming out, though I think he could have had a better editor.

Christopher Saunders. Possibly the definitive book on its subject, Casey Tefertiller's Wyatt Earp: The Life Behind the Legend does a fine job sorting history from myth in the life of the Old West lawman, gunfighter, sportsman and occasional outlaw. Tefertiller chronicles Earp from a modest upbringing in rural Missouri to his rise as a lawman in the cowtowns of Kansas, before earning everlasting notoriety as Tombstone's toughest enforcer.

The early parts of Earp's life receive a fairly quick gloss, likely because sources beyond personal accounts by Earp, etc. The balance of the book recounts the famous Arizona feud between the Earps, Doc Holiday and their Republican political-business allies and the Cowboys, a loose collection of rustlers, gunmen and sundry troublemakers who had the backing of Democrats like Cochise County Sheriff John Behan.

This topic has been covered to death, and it's to Tefertiller's credit that he brings a fresh perspective. Rather than larger-than-life heroics, he shows the Earp-Cowboy spat as a glorified turf feud, with competing political, business and personal rivalries spilling over into bloodshed, at the OK Corral and after. Tefertiller does show a biographer's natural sympathy towards his subject, downplaying some of Earp's less reputable activities he's not convinced that Earp ever worked as a pimp, though his brothers may well have and emphasizing the violence and corruption of his opponents.

On the other hand, by the time Earp descends to his famous "vendetta ride," waging private war against the Cowboys who killed Morgan and maimed Virgil, all pretenses to honor or morality or lost: the fact that Earp's "not as bad as" Behan, Ike Clanton or Curly Bill Brocious doesn't make his actions any easier to stomach. Tefertiller, to his credit, doesn't excuse this ugly part of Wyatt's life; he's also quite good at sketching Wyatt's rocky later years, including a controverisal stint refereeing boxing matches, a failed prospecting career in Alaska and his later efforts with the help of his partner Sadie, journalist Stuart Lake and various filmmakers and novelists to craft his legend.

The Earp that emerges here is more human and less noble than the cinematic legend, a creditable achievement in and of itself. A must-read for students of the Old West. Some of the men in my book group wanted to read a western, and some of them wanted to read a biography. His father was a veteran of the Mexican War and responsible for raising and training companies of troops for the Union war effort.

Before the Civil War was over he was employed as a teamster in California. Bat Masterson is standing at right. The Mexican government built forts along the border to try to thwart American outlaws, while Arizona citizens became increasingly agitated. Rustlers, who became known as the cow-boys, began to kill each other as well as innocent citizens.

Bestselling author Tom Clavin peers behind decades of legend surrounding the story of Tombstone to reveal the true story of the drama and violence that made it famous. Tombstone also digs deep into the vendetta ride that followed the tragic gunfight, when Wyatt and Warren Earp and Holliday went vigilante to track down the likes of Johnny Ringo, Curly Bill Brocius, and other cowboys who had cowardly gunned down his brothers.

Wyatt Earp is regarded as the most famous lawman of the Old West, best known for his role in the Gunfight at the O. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. But the story of his two-year war with a band of outlaws known as the Cowboys has never been told in full. The Cowboys were the largest outlaw gang in the history of the American West. After battles with the law in Texas and New Mexico, they shifted their operations to Arizona.

There, led by Curly Bill Brocius, they ruled the border, robbing, rustling, smuggling, and killing with impunity until they made the fatal mistake of tangling with the Earp brothers. Drawing on groundbreaking research into territorial and federal government records, this hallmark among books on Wyatt Earp reveals a time and place in which homicide rates were fifty times higher than those wyatt earp biography books. The story still bears surprising relevance for contemporary America, involving hot-button issues such as gang violence, border security, unlawful immigration, the dangers of political propagandists parading as journalists, and the prosecution of police officers for carrying out their official duties.

Wyatt Earp saw it all in Tombstone. On the afternoon of October 26,in a vacant lot in Tombstone, Arizona, a confrontation between eight armed men erupted in a deadly shootout. The Gunfight at the O. Corral would shape how future generations came to view the Old West. Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and the Clantons became the stuff of legends, symbolic of a frontier populated by good guys in white hats and villains in black ones.

Dodge City, Kansas, is a place of legend. The town that started as a small military site exploded with the coming of the railroad, cattle drives, eager miners, settlers, and various entrepreneurs passing through to populate the expanding West. By the s, Dodge City was known as the most violent and turbulent town in the West. Enter Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson.