Doc Holliday: The Life And Legend - Rilegato

Roberts, Gary L.

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0471262919 ISBN 13: 9780471262916

Casa editrice: John Wiley & Sons Inc, 2006

Riassunto

The definitive biography of legendary Western gunslinger Doc Hollida

He was a dentist from the South believed to have gone west because of tuberculosis, a man who went on to become a gambler, a faro dealer, and one of the most feared (and fearless) gunfighters of his time?a close friend of Wyatt Earp and a key participant in the famous 1881 shootout at the OK Corral. He?s been portrayed on screen by actors ranging from Victor Mature and Kirk Douglas to Dennis Quaid and Val Kilmer. But who was the real Doc Holliday? Drawing on 20 years of meticulous, primary-source research, Western historian Gary Roberts strips away the legends and reveals the truth about this enigmatic man, offering many new and surprising discoveries

Gary L. Roberts (Tifton, GA), an Emeritus Professor of History at Abraham Baldwin College, is the author of over 75 articles on Western history as well as Death Comes for the Chief Justice: The Slough-Rynerson Quarrel and Political Violence in New Mexico (0-870-81212-2)

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Recensione:

Who was Doc Holliday, the famed participant in the 1881 gunfight at OK Corral? Was he a killer and professional cutthroat, a reckless murderer, or a mild–mannered young man who would give aid to his friends, whatever the fight? Roberts (history, emeritus, Abraham Baldwin Coll.) considers these contrasting opinions as he relates John Henry "Doc" Holliday′s life, a difficult task because Doc left no reminiscences, and the letters he wrote to family members were destroyed. The portrait that emerges is based on available newspaper stories and public records, which allow Roberts to show how Doc, who grew up in Georgia during the Civil War and received a DDS degree from the College of dental Surgery in Philadelphia, was a product of his circumstances. For example, he had tuberculosis and headed west in an effort to extend his life in the drier climate. Where the facts and reasons are not known, Roberts carefully considers the alternatives based upon the evidence. As he carefully points out, his work cannot be definitive but is an attempt–and a very sound one–to understand a man whose biography and legend will be forever entwined. Highly recommended for both public and academic libraries.
Stephen H. Peters, Northern Michigan Univ. Lib., Marquette. ( Library Journal, March 15, 2006)

Roberts, an authority on western history, takes on John Henry Holliday, legendary gunman, drinker, gambler and dentist (hence "Doc"), best known for some adroit shooting at the OK Corral on October 26, 1881. This is part biography, part debunking of myths and part archive of accounts of the lives of Holliday and the Earp Brothers written from the time they were alive up to the present. Roberts is effective in evoking the influences that formed his subject′s character. Born in Georgia in 1851, Holliday absorbed the manliness and rebelliousness instilled in young men of his prosperous class in antebellum Southern culture. Holliday also acquired expertise in drinking, whoring and gambling, as well as a taste for violence. Roberts is measured in evaluating the myths associated with Holliday′s exit from Georgia and his nomadic life in Texas, Colorado and Arizona. This brings the author to Tombstone, and the fray featuring Holliday and the Earps against the Clantons and McLaurys. You can′t beat this story for drama, and Roberts provides a step–by–step account of the gunfight. Some chapters are unduly packed with Roberts′s massive research. But without it, the book would not have been what the author plainly intends an omnibus of everything ever known, spoken or written about Doc Holliday. Photos not seen by PW. (Apr.) (Publishers Weekly, February 27, 2006)

"Highly recommended for both public and academic libraries" ( Library Journal, March 15, 2006)

"You can′t beat this story for drama, and Roberts provides a step–by–step account of the gunfight." (Publishers Weekly, February 27, 2006)

Recensione:

"Gary Roberts is one of a foremost of writers who has created a real literature and authentic history of the so–called Western. His exhaustively researched and beautifully written Doc Holliday: The Life and Legend reveals a pathetically ill and tortured figure, but one of such intense loyalty to Wyatt Earp that it brought him limping to the O.K. Corral and into the glare of history."
Jack Burrows, author of John Ringo: The Gunfighter Who Never Was

"Gary L. Roberts manifested an interest in Doc Holliday at a very early age, and he has devoted these past thirty–odd years to serious and detailed research in the development and writing of Doc Holliday: The Life and Legend. The world knows Holliday as Doc Holliday. Family members knew him as John. Somewhere in between the two lies the real John Henry Holliday. Roberts reflects this concept in his writing. This book should be of interest to Holliday devotees as well as newly–found readers."
Susan McKey Thomas, cousin of Doc Holliday and co–author of In Search of the Hollidays

"Doc Holliday emerges from the shadows for the first time in this important work of Western biography. Gary L. Roberts has put flesh and soul to the man who has long been one of the most mysterious figures of frontier history. This is both an important work and a wonderful read."
Casey Tefertiller, author of Wyatt Earp: The Life Behind the Legend

"The history of the American West is full of figures who have lived on as romanticized legends. They deserve serious study simply because they have continued to grip the public imagination. Such was Doc Holliday, and Gary Roberts has produced a model for looking at both the life and the legend of these frontier immortals."
Robert M. Utley, author of The Lance and the Shield: The Life and Times of Sitting Bull

"Splendid . . . not only the most readable yet definitive study of Holliday yet published, it is one of the best biographies of nineteenth century Western ′good–bad men′ to appear in the last twenty years. It was so vivid and gripping that I read it twice."
Howard R. Lamar, Sterling Professor of History Emeritus, Yale University and author of The New Encyclopedia of the American West

"Gary Roberts has written the most thoroughly researched and comprehensive biography of Doc Holliday in existence. Highly readable and insightful, it is an absolute must for all scholars and fans of the Old West."
Roger D. McGrath, author of Gunfighters, Highwaymen, & Vigilantes

Su questa edizione

• Editore: John Wiley & Sons Inc
• Data di pubblicazione: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0471262919
• ISBN 13: 9780471262916
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 528