Billy the Kid

Presumably the bibliography of a legend may be permitted as many vagaries as the legend itself. It is in that spirit, at any rate, that this volume describes not merely books but also phonograph records, a radio broadcast, motion pictures, comic books, and an advertising leaflet. Certainly the growth of the legend could not be properly portrayed without mention of these media for it is a part of the incredible story that a youth who died in New Mexico Territory in 1881 should life on in the minds of men, however inaccurately, through these modern forms of communication. The brief life of Billy the Kid is told so many times in the 437 items recorded in this volume, with so many variations, that when one has read them a new image of Billy has taken shape, different from any single presentation in the book. There is simply nothing one can do to stop a legend, because even analyzing it breathes into it a new life. In this work the author has kept his annotations remarkably well in hand. Types and prototypes march through them with surprising clarity. The collations, so faithfully set down by Mr. Dykes, are nevertheless in some respects a little wayward. Partly this is because of the nature of the material and partly it is because Mr. Dykes has produced the work--which probably could have been written by no one else--as a collector rather than as a professional bibliographer. It would have been ungracious to eliminate material that will be appreciated by his fellow enthusiasts--page 3.