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Suppressed Murder of Wyatt Earp

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This book was written at the urging of the niece of Wyatt Earp, who wished the picture set straight on her uncles, Wyatt, Virgil, Morgan and Jim whose reputations were being sent down the drain by such debunkers as Frank Waters (see reviews of his book, THE EARP BROTHERS OF TOMBSTONE) and Ed Ellsworth Bartholomew. In view of the family's concern, this is the first Earp book that had the input from formerly closely held family information. All of this author's subsequent books revealed for the first time what had been family secrets about an enigmatic man.
This is also the story of Wyatt's secret second wife, whom he deserted for his third (a much younger and prettier woman), who would herself, one day, write of her husband - see I MARRIED WYATT EARP.
The story is told here of the suicide of the deserted wife, an incident which, if known, would have prevented the Wyatt Earp Myth from ever getting off the ground.
A must book for Western Buffs and researchers planning a book on the Earp story.
Many photos of Earps never before seen.
Without this restoration of Wyatt's reputation we would have seen few if any movies about him (at least not lauditory ones) and Tombstone, Arizona, which thrives on the Earp reputation might be a dusty little town, rather than a tourist mecca and bonanza.

This little book (67 pages of text & 56 pages of appendices) was first published in 1967, at which time it must surely have caused some consternation in "Earpiana." For at that time and in the wake of Stuart Lake's historical novel, "Frontier Marshall," Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp was viewed by many as something of a western superhero who had no faults and could do no wrong. Then, this book came along: concentrating on and fully documenting what, in all likelihood, is the worst "wrong" Wyatt Earp ever committed -- that being his abandonment of his second wife, Celia Ann Blaylock, AKA "Mattie" Earp, for a much younger woman. To make matters even worse for Wyatt's reputation, as the book also proves, the distraught Mattie turned to prostitution and later killed herself.

All this, to be sure, took nothing away from Wyatt's reputation as a lawman, but it certainly didn't do much for his otherwise sterling reputation as the all American hero. Strangely enough, however, now, forty some-odd years after the book's initial publication; these facts are well known by most of those who care about such things, have been assimilated into a more correct version of the life and times of Wyatt Earp, and still Wyatt Earp stands tall among America's true Western heroes.

But now, Celia Blaylock, for better or for worse (as the old marriage ceremony goes), is part of Wyatt's story. For this book not only killed the myth of the all-perfect "Frontier Marshall," as the author intended, it also resurrected Mattie Earp almost 80 years after her death.

In this work Boyer successfully deconstructs the Earp Myth perpetrated by early writers, and removes the false mantle of sainthood cast on Earp's reputation. The Suppressed Murder of Wyatt Earp is still the cornerstone upon which all Earp research is built, and is revolutionary in its own right in that it was written by one who had intimate knowledge of his subject through close personal contact with Earp descendents. This is a study of a man balanced against his own time and place. It could easily have been an academic dissertation, both in text and content, yet Boyer's writing is engaging, not pedantic, and will appeal to any reader. The metaphoric title, appropriately chosen, represents not the actual murder of Earp but the unwilling transmogrification of his life from ordinary man to saint. This book, supplemented by numerous appendixes, sets the record straight and restores Earp to the man he actually was and to his proper place in history. It is highly recommended reading.