John Ringo: The Gunfighter Who Never Was [Paperback]

Jack Burrows (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 1996

He was the deadliest gun in the West. Or was he? Ringo: the very name has come to represent the archetypal Western gunfighter and has spawned any number of fictitious characters laying claim to authenticity. John Ringo's place in western lore is not without basis: he rode with outlaw gangs for thirteen of his thirty-two years, participated in Texas's Hoodoo War, and was part of the faction that opposed the Earp brothers in Tombstone, Arizona. Yet his life remains as mysterious as his grave, a bouldered cairn under a five-stemmed blackjack oak. Western historian Jack Burrows now challenges popular views of Ringo in this first full-length treatment of the myth and the man. Based on twenty years of research into historical archives and interviews with Ringo's family, it cuts through the misconceptions and legends to show just what kind of man Ringo really was.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"In an engaging style, Burrows shoots down the romantic myth that Ringo was a deadeye gunman with evidence based on years of careful research." —American West "The product of a three-decade search for facts, this entertaining and easy-to-read book is likely to stand forever as the final significant word concerning the myth surrounding one of Arizona's most notorious gunmen, a 'vicious and dangerous drunk' who might well have been forgotten were it not for the euphony of his name." —Books of the Southwest "This well-reasoned analysis of a major Western myth is an important contribution to the history of the West." —Library Journal "The wealth of new information Burrows has unearthed helps put Ringer in proper perspective. In addition, the author's analysis of how the gunfighter myth developed should invite a wider audience than the somewhat specialized subject would indicate." —Booklist "This book is an absolute must for students of Western outlaws and makes mighty fine reading for the 'armchair cowpoke.'" —The Californians "Burrows has done a masterful job of collecting information about the elusive Western figure, John Ringo, and shows not only the man but the web of myth that has spun around him in the last century." —The Book Reader

From the Inside Flap

He was the deadliest gun in the West. Or was he? Ringo: the very name has come to represent the archetypal Western gunfighter and has spawned any number of fictitious characters laying claim to authenticity. John Ringo's place in western lore is not without basis: he rode with outlaw gangs for thirteen of his thirty-two years, participated in Texas's Hoodoo War, and was part of the faction that opposed the Earp brothers in Tombstone, Arizona. Yet his life remains as mysterious as his grave, a bouldered cairn under a five-stemmed blackjack oak. Western historian Jack Burrows now challenges popular views of Ringo in this first full-length treatment of the myth and the man. Based on twenty years of research into historical archives and interviews with Ringo's family, it cuts through the misconceptions and legends to show just what kind of man Ringo really was. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 242 pages
• Publisher: University of Arizona Press (March 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0816516480
• ISBN-13: 978-0816516483
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,150,438 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars John Ringo: The Biography That Never Was, October 27, 2001

By 

C. Baker "cbaker" (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: John Ringo: The Gunfighter Who Never Was (Paperback)

This book should have been called John Ringo: The Biography that Never Was.

Burrows spends most of time telling the reader why everybody else's biography of Ringo is wrong, and spends very little time telling us who John Ringo really was. In some ways I empathize with the author because there really is no substantial or reliable primary sources for a biography of Ringo. But frankly, having read a lot of history of the Old West, nothing in this book is new or revealing. While the exegesis and (extreme) criticism of Ringo's biographers was somewhat interesting -- it really becomes somewhat tedious.

Burrows could boiled this entire work down to a nice article in an academic historical journal -- and quite frankly probably should have.

25 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Needed a better editor than it got, January 29, 2003

By 

Atheen M. Wilson "Atheen" (Mpls, MN United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: John Ringo: The Gunfighter Who Never Was (Hardcover)

I have the distinct feeling that John Ringo the Gunfighter Who Never Was is an old dissertation rendered into a book by a university press interested in promoting works of local history. It reminds me so much of my own history advisor, Tom B. Jones' words to me when picking a topic for my master's thesis, "keep it narrow, keep it simple, get it done!"

The subject is certainly a narrow one. John Ringo was one of the lessor gunfighters among a panoply of truly famous names: Wyatt Earp, John Westly Hardin, Doc Holliday, Jessie James, Wild Bill Hickock, Buffalo Bill, etc. While he may have been in the wings, he took noticeable part in almost none of the really graphic events of his time. The most noteworthy event of his life was his apparent decision to commit suicide.

The topic can hardly be but simple; the author himself admits that there is little concrete data available on Ringo, and he proceeds to demolish most of it in his critique of these sources, some of which are poorly written western adventure novels. To his credit Professor Burrows did manage to locate and critique several Ringo family resources that, for various reasons (for which check out the chapter notes) had not been used previously in an academic fashion.

The coverage of the project took a short 203 pages. It took that many mostly because the author repeats the same information in a variety of poses and with more adjectives than I've seen since attempting to wade through an old harlequin romance at the behest of a friend. Sometimes the sentences are so long one loses sight of where one was going by the end of them. And words? I read voraciously and have a substantial vocabulary-I was once hailed as a genius by a coworker for using "sanguine" correctly in a sentence!-but some of Dr. Burrows' choices suggested that a thesaurus was ever at hand least he be too repetitious.

I do think the book is an important one. It sets much of the mystery of the subject into perspective, which most of the written works heretofore have not. Certainly the on-going saga of the Ringo family's Victorian shame over the black sheep in its midst is certainly an interesting one. The difficult events of Ringo's early life, brings one to wonder how many of the misfits of the old west-or of our own time for that matter-grew out of stressful events suffered during early adolescence, events over which they had little or no control.

I think that what the book needed was a better and more critical editor than it got.

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A LONG OVERDUE BBOK, January 27, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: John Ringo: The Gunfighter Who Never Was (Paperback)

I reviewed this book for True West when it first came out as a long overdue book. I got my foot into it with the author whom I thought would appreciate my needling him a little over what I considered "professorial" writing. This in no way detracts from the long overdue aspect. Ringo was considerd a deadly gunfighter for years but really wasn't. Author Burrows made that point and did what author Eugene Cunningham suggested should be done for Wyatt Earp: to replace his halo with an unsanctified Stetson. This certainly was and is a valuable contribution to the literature on Tombstone and the famous Earp/Cow-boy politico-economic war that took place there, a war that has captivated Hollywood ever since they discovered it. I would like to see Burrows direct his considerable researching and writing talent to some other Western subject, or to amplifying our knowledge in this field. This is a must book for the library of Western Buffs and especially those interested in Tombstone and the Earps. Glenn G. Boyer