Of all firsthand accounts of lawlessness in the old Southwest, none is more fascinating than Pat F. Garrett's The Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid. First published in 1882, a year after Sheriff Garrett killed the Kid, "the bravest and most feared' gunman of the Lincoln County, New Mexico, cattle war, it is at once the most authoritative biography of William H. Bonney and the foundation of the Billy the Kid legend.

Twelve decades after Billy the Kid's death in 1881, books, movies, and essays about this western outlaw are still popular. And they all go back to one source: The Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid, published in 1882 by the man who killed Billy, Sheriff Pat Garrett. Frederick Nolan, an authority on the American Southwest, examines the legends introduced by The Authentic Life and shows how Garrett's book is responsible for misconceptions about the Kid's early life and his short, violent career. Many inaccuracies in The Authentic Life can be attributed to a ghostwriter, Marshall Ashmun "Ash"...