Tombstone : An Iliad of the Southwest (Historians of the Frontier and American West Series) [Paperback]

Walter Noble Burns (Author), Casey Tefertiller (Foreword)

Book Description

Series: Historians of the Frontier and American West | Publication Date: September 1, 1999

First published in 1927, Tombstone defined the legend of lawman-gunfighter Wyatt Earp. A mixture of fact and fiction, Walter Noble Burns's portrayal of Earp has profoundly influenced subsequent generations of historians, novelists, and screen writers. Born in 1849, Earp grew up on the Missouri-Kansas frontier and first came to notice as a no-nonsense town marshal in rip-roaring Dodge City, Kansas. Moving to wide-open Tombstone, Arizona in 1879, he became a businessman and deputy United States marshal where he was soon joined by his four brothers. In Burns's narrative, the Earp clan represents law and order in the lawless, chaotic Old West. The collision between civilization and frontier explodes in the bloody and legendary shootout at the OK Corral between the Earps and the Clanton-McLowery gang. The Earps prevailed, but the subsequent shootings of two Earp brothers drove the calm, courageous, and somewhat emotionless Wyatt to take the law into his own hands. In a personal rage, he hunted and killed the treacherous "assassins." Wyatt Earp's most recent biographer, Casey Tefertiller, discusses the influence of Tombstone on the history and legend of Wyatt Earp and the Old West.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

A mixture of fact and fiction, this is the book that defined Wyatt Earp's legend as a gunfighter-lawman.

About the Author

Walter Noble Burns (1872-1932), was a journalist and historian in Chicago.

Product Details

• Paperback: 412 pages
• Publisher: University of New Mexico Press (September 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0826321542
• ISBN-13: 978-0826321541
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #493,422 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Deserves a Top Notch Place in Tombstone history, January 3, 2005

By 

Socialcomment "LQCLamar" (Western U. S.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tombstone : An Iliad of the Southwest (Historians of the Frontier and American West Series) (Paperback)

Walter Noble Burns looked up Wyatt Earp with a view toward writing a story about him, as he had about Billy the Kid. His Billy the Kid helped establish once and for all the legendary status of the Kid. Wyatt Earp reported Burn's first visit to his friend, movie star, Wm. S. Hart, saying he was happily convinced Wyatt would allow him to do his story.

Unfortunately, for both Burns and Earp, Wyatt's friend John H. Flood Jr. had just written Wyatt's story, which was being circulated to publishers with the help of Wm. S. Hart. More unfortunately was that Earp loyally declined Burn's offer out of regard for Flood. The rub there turned out to be that Flood obviously couldn't write for beans. (Ask me. I found, bought and published his work after historians had sought for years this rare document, all copies of which had dropped out of sight.) As one editor said of Flood's work, it was "stilted and florid and diffuse." That may have been an understatement.

In any case, shifty Burns, despite what others have more kindly said about the sequel, tricked Wyatt into thinking he would instead do a book on Wyatt's intimate, Doc Holliday. And under that pretext he got a lot out of Wyatt, and used it to do a book that Wyatt finally concluded, was more about him than Doc. In fact when it occurred to him that he'd been tricked out of what amounted to the most interesting part of his life story he considered suing Burns. His friend Hart encouraged him, and thought he'd probably win big time. But suits cost time and money just as they do today. Moreover, Wyatt was old and tired. So Burns got away with his trickery, and brought out one of the most interesting, and accurate, books on what had gone on during what could be called the Earp, Behan, Clanton, McLaury, Cowboy Gang Feud. Behan was the crooked sheriff in spades. Burns did not learn that beneath much of the violence at Tombstone lay the fact that Wyatt had swiped the sheriff's cute, young, gal, Josephine Sarah Marcus. (Who later became his third and last wife, at least by common-law.) SEE THE STORY OF HER LIFE WITH WYATT ON AMAZON: "I MARRIED WYATT EARP."

Burns success in portraying things as they were was based on the fact that he found many of the participants still living, just as he had in the case of Billy the Kid. Burns was, however, basically a tenderfoot. For example, while researching Wyatt, an idea for another book occurred to him to cover the shenanigans of the many colorful old timers out in Cochise County, and he proposed to have the father of my old friend Ben Sanders act as his oracle and guide in seeking out old scoundrels. Bill Sanders reaction was: "You must be joking. These people are my neighbors!" If the implication isn't obvious to law professors from back East and that sort, he meant he'd have to move out if he blew the whistle.

In any case, this is a book well worth reading. It's author ended a colorful career shortly after the book came out, by dying quite young. Pity.

There is less fiction here than modern writers, who are shot in the pants with debunking, would like us to believe. Burns knew the foremost guide to writing such books was "stick to the facts, till you run out of them, and only make up as much as you have to in order to eat regularly." Editorial ethics then and now were much the same. In any case, Burns was not "stilted and florid and diffuse."

Since Flood's Ms. was not saleable, when Stuart Lake came along a few years later he took it over and made it that way. And Lake's so-called biography of Wyatt is a lot more truth than fiction. Read it, too: WYATT EARP: FRONTIER MARSHAL.

Burns was the first of the big name writers that started Wyatt Earp on the trail to fame and eventualy six-shooter Sainthood. I have a notion Wyatt would have liked the money in it, but not necessarily the fuss and bother of meeting celebrity seekers.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best ever book about Wyatt Earp?, April 13, 2001

By 

Smallchief - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Tombstone : An Iliad of the Southwest (Historians of the Frontier and American West Series) (Paperback)

I read somewhere that more movies have been made about Wyatt Earp than all the U.S. presidents combined! There's something about the gunfight at the O.K. Corral that touches the mainspring of American imagination. Tombstone is the book that made Wyatt Earp famous and shaped forever our perception of him. I read Tombstone first when I was in high school back in the 1950s and I've since dipped into it countless times. Some might object to the author's purple prose and made-up dialogue and newer scholarly studies of the Earps and Tombstone may be more accurate and balanced. But Burns drew his material from interviews with old-timers and Tombstone newspapers and I'm confident that he comes about as close to fact as you can get. This is a magical tale and nobody could tell it any better than Burns.

Smallchief

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars great book and insight to the old west, February 9, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Tombstone : An Iliad of the Southwest (Historians of the Frontier and American West Series) (Paperback)

tombstone the Iliad of the Southwest was a very informative book that keep me entertained as well as learning about the history of the people that shaped the southwest.I was very impressed how the author was able to interview many of the characters or speak to people that lived through that era.The book being writted in 1927 really brought out alot of history that would otherwise be lost.