Raymon F. Adams for many years has has collected books about the Wild West badmen and studied the contents of these books. "Never would I have believed," he writes, "that so much false, inaccurate, and garbled history could have found its way into print." This book is where you should start if you wish to sort the harsh facts from titillative fancy.

Was there ever a book that took telling the truth about the American West so seriously? Although Adams destoys many of the cherished myths, the Rose of Cimmaron ,Wild Bill Hick's heroic battle with the McCanles gang, the basic Robin Hood attitude of Jesse James, what emerges in its place is a gritty, much more believable and much more interesting story.
Arranged as a series of essays on the basic truthfulness of scores of works on Western history, this is an essential addition to any Western library, highly recommended