Larry Knuth/ Chairman: Friends of Tombstone
30 US Dollars
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Inc
ISBN: 0471262919
Sons, Inc., 2006), 544 pages, Illustrated, $30.00, ISBN: 0471262919.
About the Book (from the dust jacket): He was a study in contrasts: the legendary gunslinger who made his living as a dentist; the emaciated consumptive whose very name struck fear in the hearts of his enemies; the degenerate gambler and alcoholic whose fierce loyalty to his friends compelled him, more than once, to risk his own life; the sidekick whose near-mythic status has come to rival that of the West's greatest heroes. More than 100 years after he died of tuberculosis at the age of thirty-six, Doc Holliday remains an enigma, a legend in the shadows, a brooding metaphor for the moral contradictions of life on the late nineteenth-century frontier.
In Doc Holliday: The Life and Legend, the historian Gary Roberts takes aim at the most complex, perplexing and paradoxical gunfighter of the Old West. Drawing on more than twenty years of research on his enigmatic subject, Roberts discovered numerous new primary sources in his quest to understand both what John Henry Holliday did and didn't do, and what these exploits meant to the elusive man behind the now-legendary deeds.
Roberts explores Holliday's idyllic, antebellum childhood in Georgia, where he was schooled in the manly virtues of independence, loyalty, proficiency with weapons of every kind, and above all, honor. He considers numerous explanations behind John Henry's sudden and drastic decision to abandon his large extgended family and a promising career to move to Texas, where, in the parlance of the day, he "slipped from the path of rectitude" even as he clung to his profession and the ideals he had learned as a child. Roberts tracks Holliday's western ramblings from Dallas to Denver to Cheyenne to Dodge City to Tombstone, always in pursuit of the next game of chance and another shot of whiskey, his health on a deep downward spiral, his gunfighting skills on the rise. Along the way he befriended (or made enemies of) such Western icons as Bat Masterson, Kate Elder, Curly Bill Brocius, and Wyatt Earp.
As you'll discover, there were as many conflicting opinions about Doc Holliday as there were people who knew him, or knew of him: To Earp, he was a "mad, merry scamp with a heart of gold and nerves of steel." According to Masterson, he "had a mean disposition and an ungovernable temper, and under the influence of liquor was a dangerous man." Newspapers called him everything from "a very mild manner man . . . genial and companionable" to a "shiftless bagged-legged character-a killer and a professional cutthroat." In this fascinating probe into the real life of a near-mythic figure, you'll meet the man who lived up to every one of these statements and more.
Why Another Biography of Doc Holliday?
First, this is the most thorough examination of Doc Holliday yet written based upon a broader range of source material and written from a more balanced perspective. It attempts to understand the legend as well as to present the facts. Where the facts are in dispute, it presents the various options and the arguments for each. Most importantly, it attempts to give substance to the man himself by recognizing his strengths and weaknesses and attempting to reconstruct his personality and character based upon the record.
Second, the book is more than a biography. Holliday's life provides an opportunity to examine the times in which he lived, exploring not only how Doc's life fit within the era in which he lived and how he was shaped by it, but also the nature of the period itself and its impact upon the Westward movement. Particular emphasis is placed upon the influence of his background in the Civil War South and the effects of Gilded Age economic and social values upon him and upon the evolution of his legend.
Third, this work benefits from significant changes that have taken place in the field over the past decade. It is based upon a larger fund of contemporary documents and other new sources, including a wide range of family sources, recently discovered records and recollections, examination of previously unused contemporary newspapers, and new research on Holliday's associates. The book also synthesizes a significant new body of historical literature published over the past decade by a wide range of scholars and writers.
The result is a balanced narrative of Doc Holliday's life that not only presents a careful analysis of the known facts of his life and what they reveal about his personality and character, but also acknowledges the limitations of the record and suggests areas which need further study. Equally significant, the book explores the social, economic, and political trends of the times in which Holliday lived in ways that clarify both the phenomenon of frontier violence and the emergence of the gunfighter myth.
About the Author: Gary L. Roberts, Emeritus Professor of History, Abraham Baldwin College, Tifton, Georgia, is a life-long resident of the South Georgia region where Doc Holliday grew up. He developed an interest in the Old West as a child which matured into a broader love of history. He graduated from Abraham Baldwin College, received the A. B. in History, with honors, and M. A. in History from Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, Georgia, and the Ph. D. in History from the University of Oklahoma. In his academic career, he served as consultant for the National Endowment for the Humanities, division chairperson, and advisor to programs for teaching humanities to students in career-technology programs and the Georgia Police Officers Service and Training Council. A program he helped to develop to teach the humanities to technology students was recognized as one of the NEH's top one hundred programs in 1976. But his great love was classroom teaching which he pursued successfully for thirty-three years.
Roberts sold his first article about the Old West (an article on Wyatt Earp) while a senior in high school and has published dozens of articles in magazines, journals, anthologies, and specialized encyclopedias on such varied subjects as the Western gunfighter, the historiography of the West's gunmen, the legend-making process, the Indian wars, and frontier violence. He co-edited with Harold P. Henderson, Georgia Governors in an Age of Change (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1988), and authored Death Comes for the Chief Justice: The Slough-Rynerson Quarrel and Political Violence in New Mexico (Niwot, CO: University Press of Colorado, 1990). He has received awards for his writing including the Vivian Paladin Award given annually for the best article appearing in Montana,The Magazine of Western History and the Outstanding WOLA Journal article on Outlaw-Lawman history, awarded annually by the Western Outlaw-Lawman History Association.
REVIEWS OF DOC HOLLIDAY: THE LIFE AND LEGEND
Pre-publication readers' evaluations for the publisher:
"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 Emeritus of History, Yale University, and editor of the The New Encyclopedia of the American West.
"The history of the American West is full of figures who have lived on as romanticized legends. They deserve serioius 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, former Chief Historian of the National Park Service and author of books on George A. Custer, Sitting Bull, Billy the Kid, the Lincoln County War, and the Texas Rangers.
"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 book and a wonderful read."-Casey Tefertiller, author of Wyatt Earp: The Life Behind the Legend.
"Gary Roberts is one of a foremost class 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 Johnny 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 wirting 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 coauthor of In Search of the Hollidays.
"Gary L. 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.
"For more than thirty years Gary L. Roberts has been an authority on frontier criminal justice. This long-awaited biography, Doc Holliday: The Life and Legend, is so meticulously researched, compelling, and illuminating that it is bound to both shape and restructure our understanding of both the life and times of one of the most notorious and controversial characters of the Southwest."-John Boessenecker, author of Gold Dust & Gunsmoke: Tales of Gold Rush Outlaws, Gunfighter, Lawmen, and Vigilantes.
Book reviews (excerpts):
". . . Roberts is effective in evoking the influences that shaped his subject's character. . . . Roberts is measured in evaluating the myths associated with Holliday's exit from Georgia and his nomadic life in Texas, Colorado, and Arizona. . . . You can't beat this story for drama. . . ."-Publisher's Weekly.
". . . Roberts' role here is a bit like that of a judge, examining the testimonies and deciding which witnesses to believe and which to discard. The result is an engagingly written, persuasively argued, solidly documented work of scholarship that will surely take its place in the literature of the Old West."-David Pitt, Booklist.
". . . Roberts carefully considers the alternatives based on the evidence. As he carefully points out, his work cannot be considered definitive but is an attempt-and a very sound one-a man whose biography and legend will be forever entwined. Highly recommended for both public and academic libraries."-Stephen H. Peters, Library Journal.
". . . Gary L. Roberts has written an exemplary biography that provides the most complete balanced and thoughtful account of Doc Holliday yet published. . . .To Gary Roberts' great credit, he has produced a book that makes Doc Holliday a more interesting historical figure than the various legends that have clouded his life. His biography provides a highly enlightening reading experience."-Clyde A. Milner II, The History Book Club.
". . . In a vivid, sweeping narrative, historian Gary Roberts brings us his (Doc Holliday's) remarkable story."-Book of the Month Club.
". . . In the movies, Doc Holliday appears as a western version of a Joseph Conrad character, a tarnished cavalier with a mysterious past, whose strongest virtue is loyalty to Earp. Happily, as revealed in Doc Holliday: The Life and Legend, a provocative and immensely readable new biography written by Gary Roberts . . . much of the legend is true, or at least rooted in fact. . . ."-Allen Barra, The Dallas (TX) Morning News.
". . . Like Billy the Kid and Jesse James, Doc Holliday is one of those Western historical figures who has been so completely obscured by legend and mythmaking that getting at the man himself seems an impossible task. Gary L. Roberts . . . is well aware of the difficulties but makes a heroic attempt. . . . In 414 pages of text buttressed by almost 90 pages of notes, Roberts thoroughly excavates the record, examines the legend and speculates why the latter has proved so enduring. . . . Roberts does about as well as anybody could at conjuring the real Holliday, given the dearth of reliable raw material and the subsequent distortions."-John Sledge, Mobile (AL) Press-Register.
". . . Dr. Roberts shows the way it should be done. And aside from the quality of the historiography, it is beautifully written. Wiley, an established, old-line American publisher, saw these qualities early on. In a field of self-published dribble, this book is a gem."-Roger S. Peterson, Amazon.com.
"Gary Roberts' biography of Doc Holliday informs and fascinates. The book is well researched, well documented, extensively footnoted, and provocative. The author has achieved a difficult task in a historical book, he informs the readers as well as keeps us interested. . . .
"Gary Roberts presents his evidence so the reader is aware of the documentation without getting lost in the details. Possibilities as well as probabilities are presented in a logical manner. The author leads his audience to probable conclusions yet lets the reader know other options are possible.
"I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the life and legend of Doc Holliday as well as anyone who wants to experience life on the frontier including the gambling fraternity, politics, friendship, loyalty, romance, outlaws and lawmen. DOC HOLLIDAY is a biography and a tale of legend woven together with skill into a tapestry that satisfies the thirst for knowledge and the desire for an engrossing read." -Pamela J. Potter, Amazon.com.
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