I Married Wyatt Earp: The Recollections of Josephine Sarah Marcus Earp [Paperback]

Josephine Sarah Marcus Earp (Author), Glenn G. Boyer (Compiler, Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1976

The highly controversial memoir of Wyatt Earp's widow, who lived with him for 48 years after they both fled Tombstone in 1882.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Limited remainder of this book is now exhausted. A revised edtion will be published within the next year by Legendary Publications.

Product Details

• Paperback: 277 pages
• Publisher: University of Arizona Press (August 1976)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0816505837
• ISBN-13: 978-0816505838
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #108,080 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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26 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent and engrossing read., January 15, 1999

By 

Wayne Collier - See all my reviews

This review is from: I Married Wyatt Earp: The Recollections of Josephine Sarah Marcus Earp (Paperback)

Wyatt Earp assumes another personna in these memoirs by his wife, Jospehine Sarah Marcus Earp. She recites a loving memory of a wise and skillful man with whom she wandered the West for half a century seeking adventure and riches; an odyssey by an itinerant "boomer" and his wife that while not always successful, included exciting adventures in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado and Idaho. Here Josephine reveals a Wyatt Earp unlike the mythical figure created by Stuart lake, the brooding and deceitful soul depicted by Frank Waters, or the vitriolic portrait of a scoundrel presented by Ed Bartholomew. Due to poor scholarship, biases, or misinformation, it is difficult, at this late date, to rescue the real Wyatt Earp from the dusty layers of time. In this book, Josephine Earp makes a valiant and largely successful effort to do so.

Josephine has a sure grasp of most of the undercurrents surrounding Wyatt's life and times. Her Wyatt Earp emerges as a western jack-of-all trades: a part-time lawman, part-time gambler, part-time prospector, part-time race horse manager, part-time boxing referee, and part-time conman. Wyatt and Josephine mingled with the wealthy, with noted gunmen. with literary figures, with movies stars, with crooks, and with plain folks.

When Wyatt was young he was undoubtedly a showman but so were many of his contemporaries. A reputation for toughness was always helpful on the frontier and opened many doors for the ambitious Wyatt Earp who often practiced the art of "embellishment" as a helpful adjunct for survival in whatever trade he undertook. He made many enemies and a few close friends during his life. He was attractive to women, probably wandered during his marriage to Josephine, and may have suffered accordingly.

Anyone who tries to understand the making of the Earp myth might be forgiven for wondering how Wyatt became a legend. It's a good bet Wyatt Earp would have marveled as well. In this book, Mrs. Earp's assessment is very simple: Wyatt fit the mold of a hero in every respect. He was tough, nervy, adaptable, incredibly lucky, and most importantly was chosen by fate as the personification of a hero. Authors Stuart Lake and Walter Noble Burns wrote their successful books on Earp six decades ago using this latter premise and thus, we have had countless books, articles, etc., arguing the pros and cons of Wyatt Earp.

Mrs. Earp's memoirs were edited by Glenn Boyer and as usual his informative comments strengthen her narrative. Boyer is very knowledgeable on the Earp family and has devoted many years in correcting lies and misconceptions about Wyatt Earp. Boyer's chapter notes describe a Wyatt Earp subject to the frailties that beset us all, no matter the time and place; a person maligned durng and after his life; and a person more often in the right than in the wrong.

Jospehine was with Wyatt when he died on January 13, 1929, a peaceful end to a long, turbulent and adventurous life. Both he and Josephine had traveled together for many years but his last and most important journey was made without her. She lived until 1944, a strong willed person filled with an abiding love for Wyatt Earp. Josephine devoted her remaining years in fiercely defending her vision of a tough and honorable man. Her memoirs provide an intimate and personal view of Wyatt Earp that few readers interested in the West should do without.

35 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Criticism & Controversy, November 2, 2004

By 

D. Coleman - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: I Married Wyatt Earp: The Recollections of Josephine Sarah Marcus Earp (Paperback)

This is a highly controversial book, though as many reviewers before me have noted; it's hard to tell why. Review readers influenced by such stale criticisms as that the author faked his research (criticisms without a basis in fact) should read the above publisher's statement about what the book is. It traces the genesis of such unjustified criticisms.

At the time the book was released, it was correctly recognized by the Univ. of Arizona. Press as the most heavily documented book of the kind they had ever published. This has not changed. Further, the major documentary sources of the book are all in the special collections of Univ. of Arizona library.

This book is exactly what it appears to be - a memoir of a remarkable frontier woman who, moreover, was the mistress of the leaders on both sides of an unparalleled feud that led to widespread bloodshed in southeastern Arizona. She was, in fact, as the author comments, a sort of Helen of Troy of Tombstone in that her defection from the sheriff to Wyatt Earp was responsible for the sheriff's frantic efforts to even the score by trying to railroad the Earps to prison or the gallows for the public service they performed, known today as the gunfight at the o.k. corral. He did not succeed.

He did succeed in hounding them out of the territory, however, which seems to have founded an M.O. that many subsequent sheriffs have followed. Sheriff john slaughter appointed himself judge, jury and executioner and bad guys fled, sheriff harry wheeler, ran thousands of union men out of the county, a recent sheriff, with somewhat more justice, frightened a troublemaking religious sect out of the county.

By any measure, Josie Earp's memoir is worth reading. As to the criticism that she didn't write it, most subjects of memoirs do not write them personally, but have the assistance of someone with writing ability who is familiar with their story, such as a relative or close friend. In this case, Glenn Boyer finalized the work he took it over an unfinished work from two earlier amanuenses and vastly enriched it with superior resources and knowledge. They were distant relatives of Josie Earp. He was an intimate of the Earp family and fully qualified to do what he did - rewrite several less-than-professional sources and merge them into a first person delivery to make them saleable, and he did it on professional advice.

So what's to criticize if he rewrote as necessary if that's par for the course? Well, for one thing the author, Boyer, kicked a lot of literary thieves in the back pockets of their Levi's and they aren't taking it very well. And why did he do it? As premier Earp premieer, lee Silva, has said: "we wouldn't know much about Wyatt Earp without the research of Glenn Boyer." And that was the rub. A lot of Johnny come latelies appropriated that research for their own work without due credit, which is why they got kicked where they needed it most.

I note that the criticism doesn't hurt sales. This book was rated 17,000 this morning. Not bad 28 years after it was released by a university press.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very Intriguing. Great history and personal outlook., October 7, 2007

By 

P. E. Morton "pep-m" (Agua Dulce, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: I Married Wyatt Earp: The Recollections of Josephine Sarah Marcus Earp (Paperback)

I was glued to this book. I even read all of the research notes. This was truly a remarkable work of history and a great perspective on an event that has been over dramatized and blown out of such proportion by Hollywood.