The Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid is a biography and first-hand account written by Pat Garrett

Pat Garrett

Patrick Floyd "Pat" Garrett was an American Old West lawman, bartender, and customs agent who was best known for killing Billy the Kid...

, sheriff of Lincoln County, New Mexico

Lincoln County, New Mexico

-2010:Whereas according to the 2010 U.S. Census Bureau:*85.1% White*0.5% Black*2.4% Native American*0.4% Asian*0.0% Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander*2.5% Two or more races*9.1% Other races*29.8% Hispanic or Latino -2000:...

. During the summer of 1881 in a small New Mexican village, Garrett shot and killed the notorious outlaw, William H. Bonney, better known as Billy the Kid

Billy the Kid

William H. Bonney William H. Bonney William H. Bonney (born William Henry McCarty, Jr. est. November 23, 1859 – c. July 14, 1881, better known as Billy the Kid but also known as Henry Antrim, was a 19th-century American gunman who participated in the Lincoln County War and became a frontier...

. Due to the first publisher's inability to widely distribute this book beginning in 1882, it sold few copies during Garrett's lifetime. By the time the fifth publisher purchased the copyright in 1954, this book had become a major reference for historians who studied and wrote about the Kid's life. The promotion of distribution to libraries in the United States and Europe sent it into a sixth printing in 1965, and by 1976 this fifth edition had reached its tenth printing. For a generation after Sheriff Garrett shot the Kid, his account was considered to be factual; however, historians have since found in this book many elaborations and inconsistencies with other accounts of the life of Billy the Kid.

Author's purpose

In the days and weeks that followed the death of Billy the Kid, there were several articles written, mostly in New Mexican newspapers, and even dime novel

Dime novel

Dime novel, though it has a specific meaning, has also become a catch-all term for several different forms of late 19th-century and early 20th-century U.S...

s that depicted the Kid's death in ways that put Pat Garrett in a bad light. As the author wrote in his "introductory" to this biography, "I am incited to this labor, in a measure, by an impulse to correct the thousand false statements which have appeared in the public newspapers and in yellow-covered, cheap novels." This purpose comes in two parts; firstly, Garrett wanted to publicly respond to the speculative accusations against him that were being printed about the Kid's death, and secondly, he wanted to set the record straight regarding the more notable incidents that had involved the notorious outlaw beginning with his early life and leading up to his untimely death. Many people had begun to talk about the unfairness of Garrett's encounter with the Kid, so his first reason, to clear his name, was decidedly his main purpose. Garrett, who did not consider himself a writer, called upon his friend, Marshall Ashmun "Ash" Upson, to ghostwrite this book with him. Ash Upson was an itinerant journalist who had a gift for graphic prose. Upson and Garrett shared equally in the royalties

Royalties

Royalties are usage-based payments made by one party to another for the right to ongoing use of an asset, sometimes an intellectual property...

. As noted in the introduction to the fifth edition of the Garrett/Upson account:

There is good reason to believe that the legend of the Kid, including the familiar historical figure he has become, would not be known at all today if this book had not been published.

Editions

There are five editions of Garrett's first-hand account. Brief descriptions of these follow:Copies of this edition are exceedingly rare.}}This edition is also scarce. Colonel Fulton carefully edited and left numerous notes to make this much superior to the first edition.}}This is a brief version of Garrett's work, the first in a series, American Folk-Lore and Humor, and published to sell for twenty-five cents.}}This edition is still available. It contains photographs of several of the book's characters from the famous Noah H. Rose collection.}}This edition is widely available. The first printing was in August 1954, sixth printing in July 1965, and tenth printing in 1976, with an introduction by J. C. Dykes.}}

See Also

• Cowboy
  Cowboy
  A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the vaquero traditions of northern Mexico and became a figure of...
  
  
• Folklore of the United States
  Folklore of the United States
  The folklore of the United States, or American folklore, is one of the folk traditions which has evolved on the North American continent since Europeans arrived in the 16th century. While it contains much in the way of Native American tradition, it should not be confused with the tribal beliefs of...
  
  
• Lincoln County War
  Lincoln County War
  The Lincoln County War was a 19th-century range war between two factions during the Old West period. Numerous notable figures of the American West were involved, including Billy the Kid, aka William Henry McCarty; sheriffs William Brady and Pat Garrett; cattle rancher John Chisum, lawyer and...
  
  
• List of American Old West outlaws
• List of Western lawmen

Further reading

• Klasner, Lily (1972). My Girlhood Among Outlaws. University of Arizona Press. edited by Eve Ball. ISBN 0816503540
• Nolan, Frederick
  Frederick Nolan
  Frederick William Nolan is an English editor and writer, mostly known as Frederick Nolan, but also using the pen names Donald Severn, Daniel Rockfern, Christine McGuire and Frederick H. Christian....
  
   (1998). The West of Billy the Kid. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0806130822
• Nolan, Frederick (2009). The Lincoln County War, Revised Edition. Santa Fé, NM: Sunstone Press. ISBN 978-0-86534-721-2
• Nolan, Frederick (2007). Tascosa: Its Life and Gaudy Times. Lubbock, TX: Texas Tech University Press
  Texas Tech University Press
  Texas Tech University Press , founded in 1971, is the university press of Texas Tech University.-External links:*...
  
  .
• Trachman, Paul (1974). The Old West: The Gunfighters. New York: Time-Life Books.
• Utley, Robert M. (1987). High Noon In Lincoln. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press. ISBN 0-8263-1201-2

External links

• The Authentic Life of Billy, The Kid at Arthur's Classic Novels.
• The Authentic Life of Billy, The Kid at Google Books.