Mattie. Wyatt Earp's Secret Second Wife.

MEYERS, E.C. [TED].

Publication: Blaine: Hancock House Publishers, 2010,

First edition. 8vo. Colored pictorial wrappers, 286 [2] pp., author's note, acknowledgments, introduction, prologue, illustrated, portraits, facsimilies, notes, bibliography, index. Mattie Blaylock was Wyatt Earp's darkest secret. She was a runaway from a strict farming family and was seduced by the dubious promises of the nightlife and bright lights of frontier towns; but with no other options to earn a living, she embraced the "sporting life." She was working in a brothel when she met and married the young, handsome and, at the time fugitive Wyatt Earp in 1871. For more than ten years Mattie followed Wyatt, leading a tumultuous and transient life, many times fleeing from the law. She ended up deserted and alone when Wyatt ran off with another woman in 1882. History has not been kind to Mattie, portraying her as an inconsequential character living in the shadow of heroic Wyatt Earp. But the truth about their relationship, and the famous lawman's lawless behavior, is a much more complex and fascinating story. At age 38, Mattie committed suicide in 1888. As new, unread copy without dust jacket as issued.