Billy The Kid. The Trail Of A Kansas Legend

W. E KOOP

Publication: The Kansas City Posse of The Westerners, 1964, N P

First Edition. 8vo. Limited edition of 250 copies numbered copies of which this is number 136, signed by the author and Jeff Dykes, who wrote the introduction. Also signed on the front free fly leaf by Jeff Dykes with the added notation "Personal Copy." Blue Cloth. Titles stamped in gilt on the front cover, xii, 19 pp. plus 20 pages of photographic illustrations, portraits and a street map. The continuing effort to research the early life of Billy The Kid ... pre-Lincoln County days. Six Guns 1254 says: "The author unearthed some new, hitherto unpublished, details about the Kid's days in Wichita, Kansas. He shows for the first time that Mr. Antrim and the Kid's mother were old acquaintances when they married and that they had adjoining town lots in Wichita." The book traces Billy the Kid's evolution from a wandering youth into a gunslinger, exploring how experiences in Kansas ... poverty, violence, survival ... laid the groundwork for his later outlaw behavior. The author uses archival documentation and local oral histories to connect the dots between the Kid's Kansas period and his later life in the Southwest. Some additional published material concerning the book's publication is laid-in. Covers lightly used and front cover gilt a little dull, else a near fine copy of a scarce book.