Garrett, Pat. F. The "first genuine biography of America's most spectacular example of juvenile delinquency

GARRETT, PAT. F 

THE AUTHENTIC LIFE OF BILLY, THE KID. SANTA FE: NEW MEXICAN PRINTING AND PUBLISHING CO., 1882

8vo (210 x 143 mm) 6 plates, 4 pp. addenda by Garrett at rear; early gift inscription to flyleaf. Publisher's blue pictorial wrappers, manuscript title to spine ("Billy the Kid") and price to cover ("50¢"); minor chipping to extremities of fragile wrappers, but a mostly intact example. 

First edition of the "first genuine biography of America's most spectacular example of juvenile delinquency,..." (Howes). While purportedly written by the sheriff that dispensed justice to young Billy, it was actually ghost-written by Ash Upson with the details of the subject's life highly embellished.

Adams calls it "exceedingly rare" and recounts a tale of the remainder being wheel-barrowed away from the publisher, never to be seen again. This is only the fourth copy we can find at auction in the last three decades.

REFERENCE:

Adams, Six-Guns 807; Graff 1515; Howes G73; Rader 1541; Streeter 4287

PROVENANCE:

Sheldon Art Museum, Middlebury Vermont (stamp to f.f.e.)