Bat masterson biography gunfighter wyatt earp

After hanging up his pistols, Bat Masterson became a journalist, sportswriter and referee. In , he wrote a series of profiles for "Human Life" magazine, detailing the lives and Masterson's own perceptions of several Wild West gunmen with whom he was acquainted. He had promised several profiles, but only wrote five, being these the stories of Luke Short, Ben Thompson, Doc Holliday, Bill Tilghman and Wyatt Earp. These five profiles make up the first half of this tome, with the other half consisting of photographs of his subjects and other Western places and personages not mentioned by Masterson, but who were contemporaries of his subjects.

Masterson writes straightforward prose with some dry wit and with a flair for describing moments of tension, gunfights and verbal repartee. He is also very good about setting up the historical and regional context of his characters. However, the profile themselves seem to be missing a lot of details and depth. While Masterson has some acute observations to make when speaking on the general character of the Western gunman, there is a lack of depth about the subjects themselves.

While the profiles on Short, Thompson and Tilghman were interes

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