AIKMAN, DUNCAN. _Calamity Jane and the Lady Wildcats_, 1927. OP. Patronizing in the H. L. Mencken style. BILLY THE KID. We ve got to take him seriously, not so much for what he was-- There are twenty-one men I have put bullets through, And Sheriff Pat Garrett must make twenty-two-- as for his provocations. Popular imagination, represented by writers of all degrees, goes on playing on him with cumulative effect. As a figure in literature the Kid has come to lead the whole field of western bad men. The _Saturday Review_, for October 11, 1952, features a philosophical essay entitled "Billy the Kid: Faust in America--The Making of a Legend." The growth of this legend is minutely traced through a period of seventy-one years (1881-1952) by J. C. Dykes in _Billy the Kid: The Bibliography of a Legend_, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1952 (186 pages). It lists 437 titles, including magazine pieces, mimeographed plays, motion pictures, verses, pamphlets, fiction. In a blend of casualness and scholarship, it gives the substance and character of each item. Indeed, this bibliography reads like a continued story, with constant references to both antecedent and subsequent action. Pat Garrett, John Chisum, and other related characters weave all through it. A first-class bibliography that is also readable is almost a new genre. Pat F. Garrett, sheriff of Lincoln County, New Mexico, killed the Kid about midnight, July 14, 1881. The next spring his _Authentic Life of Billy the Kid_ was published at Santa Fe, at least partly written, according to good evidence, by a newspaperman named Ash Upton. This biography is one of the rarities in Western Americana. In 1927 it was republished by Macmillan, New York, under title of _Pat F. Garrett's Authentic Life of Billy the Kid_, edited by Maurice G. Fulton. This is now OP but remains basic. The most widely circulated biography has been _The Saga of Billy the Kid_ by Walter Noble Burns, New York, 1926. It contains a deal of fictional conversation and it has no doubt contributed to the Robin-Hoodizing of the lethal character baptized as William H. Bonney, who was born in New York in 1859 and now lives with undiminished vigor as Billy the Kid. Walter Noble Burns was not so successful with _The Robin Hood of El Dorado: The Saga of Joaquin Murrieta_ (1932), or, despite hogsheads of blood, with _Tombstone_ (1927). CANTON, FRANK M. _Frontier Trails_, Boston, 1930. COE, GEORGE W. _Frontier Fighter_, Boston, 1934; reprinted by University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque. The autobiography of one of Billy the Kid's men as recorded by Nan Hillary Harrison. COOLIDGE, DANE. _Fighting Men of the West_, New York, 1932. Biographical sketches. OP. CUNNINGHAM, EUGENE. _Triggernometry_, 1934; reprinted by Caxton, Caldwell, Idaho. Excellent survey of codes and characters. Written by a man of intelligence and knowledge. Bibliography.