The Earp Brothers of Tombstone

Rating:
Summary: A PACK OF LIES, BASED ON IRREFUTABLE AUTHORITY
Review:
"Aunt Allie" was a dead-honest original, and didn't deserve to have Frank Waters misuse the authority of her name to unload on an unsuspecting public this duplicitous melange of lies about her life, especially that part lived with the Earps.

Allie denounced this book in her own inimitable profane manner. In my possession are the letters of Hildreth Halliwell, Aunt Allie's grand niece, saying only that Allie threatened to "sue" Waters. (She actually threatened to kill him.) As Hildreth went on to say, "I get so mad every time I think of what Frank Waters wrote after spending hours with Aunt Allie I go berserk . . . he published a lot of lies . . . "

I make that clear in my Epilogue to I MARRIED WYATT EARP and did on two other occasions while Waters was still alive, thus giving him an opportunity to sue me for libel if he chose. Naturally he didn't.

Before Frank realized what I knew for sure, I visited him when he was writer-in-residence at Colorado State U. at Ft. Collins, in 1966, ten years before my I MARRIED WYATT EARP was published. I asked him what Aunt Allie had said about his book. He said, "She said it was the truth." I still have extensive notes from that meeting." He naturally said that, but it wasn't true, of course.

This book certainly is a "travesty" as Bruce Trinque comments in an adjoining review, and it is far worse than that. Of course Bruce is referring to Frank Waters' initial title, TOMBSTONE TRAVESTY. Travesty is mild, however, this book is an outrage. It is my opinion that principle requires that it no longer be published.

In sum, Waters' book is garbage, although many passages are pure gold. The book's value is as a source for the more knowledgeable to attempt to separate the gold from the garbage. It certainly is a curiosity. But it isn't a dependable memoir.

Rating:
Summary: A PACK OF LIES, BASED ON IRREFUTABLE AUTHORITY
Review:
"Aunt Allie" was a dead-honest original, and didn't deserve to have Frank Waters misuse the authority of her name to unload on an unsuspecting public this duplicitous melange of lies about her life, especially that part lived with the Earps.

Allie denounced this book in her own inimitable profane manner. In my possession are the letters of Hildreth Halliwell, Aunt Allie's grand niece, saying only that Allie threatened to "sue" Waters. (She actually threatened to kill him.) As Hildreth went on to say, "I get so mad every time I think of what Frank Waters wrote after spending hours with Aunt Allie I go berserk . . . he published a lot of lies . . . "

I make that clear in my Epilogue to I MARRIED WYATT EARP and did on two other occasions while Waters was still alive, thus giving him an opportunity to sue me for libel if he chose. Naturally he didn't.

Before Frank realized what I knew for sure, I visited him when he was writer-in-residence at Colorado State U. at Ft. Collins, in 1966, ten years before my I MARRIED WYATT EARP was published. I asked him what Aunt Allie had said about his book. He said, "She said it was the truth." I still have extensive notes from that meeting." He naturally said that, but it wasn't true, of course.

This book certainly is a "travesty" as Bruce Trinque comments in an adjoining review, and it is far worse than that. Of course Bruce is referring to Frank Waters' initial title, TOMBSTONE TRAVESTY. Travesty is mild, however, this book is an outrage. It is my opinion that principle requires that it no longer be published.

In sum, Waters' book is garbage, although many passages are pure gold. The book's value is as a source for the more knowledgeable to attempt to separate the gold from the garbage. It certainly is a curiosity. But it isn't a dependable memoir.

Rating:
Summary: A counterpoise
Review: In the last few years with the discovery of Frank Waters' original manuscript for this book, scholars of Western American History now understand how much Waters distorted the memoirs of Allie Earp (wife of Virgil Earp and sister-in-law of Wyatt) in this later, published version. It is shocking to realize that literally every negative thing Allie Earp was alleged to have said about Wyatt Earp in "The Earp Brothers of Tombstone" was absent in Waters' earlier manuscript. The conclusion that Waters altered Allie Earp's words to fit his strongly anti-Earp prejudice is inescapable. "The Earp Brothers of Tombstone" was highly influential in the 1960's and 1970's in creating the image of Wyatt Earp as basically an adulterous criminal far removed from the 1950's television portrayal as a peerless hero. In fact, Allie Earp's memoirs presented in the original manuscript show Wyatt Earp in a rather favorable light, as a stern and taciturn man, but honorable. Frankly, I think that the University of Nebraska should be ashamed to continue to publish this book in the light of the discovery of Waters' original manuscript -- it is not history, only a fictionalized smear.

Rating:
Summary: Libelous at best or worst
Review: The author must have had a no-so-hidden agenda to debunk the man and the myth of Wyatt Earp. I have read a number of books on the Earp brothers, especially the Tombstone days. I have also read the transcript or at least what is reported to be the transcript of Judge Spicer's ruling on the murder charges brought against the Earps as a result of THE gunfight. The author in my opinion has badly and intentionally distorted the facts. I threw away my copy of this book.

Rating:
Summary: A counterpoise
Review: This book is an excellent counterpoise to the silly, inaccurate and self-serving blather which usually passes for a biography of Earp's life. While it has problems, here and there, it is, by orders of magnitude, more accurate than books which claim Earp was a lawman, primarily, or cleaned up any western town, of which several more have been published in the last few years.

Read it, look up the very accurate records kept by the justice department regarding who was a Deputy US Marshal (including special deputies, commissioned for one purpose or another), and who was not, and decide for yourself which story is correct: the intrepid lawman, or the pimp who abandoned his common-law wife; the wealthy gambler and real estate magnate, or the lazy ne'er do well who ran out on a ...mortgage; the unfailing courageous battler for law and order, or the braggart who had his face slapped and gun taken by a real US Marshall in Alaska.