For your consideration is a rare first edition of "The Saga of Billy the Kid" by William Noble Burns, 1926 Grosset & Dunlap. This entertaining and dramatic biography forever installed outlaw Billy the Kid in the pantheon of mythic heroes from the Old West and is still considered the single most influential portrait of Billy in this century. The book focuses on the Kid's life and experiences in the bloody war between the Murphy-Dolan and Tunstall-McSween gangs in and around Lincoln, New Mexico, between 1878 and 1881. Burns paints the Kid as a boyish Robin Hood or romantic knight galvanized into a life of crime and killing by the war's violence and bloodshed. Billy represented the romantic and anarchic Old West that the march of civilization was rapidly displacing. Walter Noble Burns's “Saga of Billy the Kid” kindled a fascination in Billy the Kid that survives to this day. Burns was a writer of Western history and a Western fiction author. He was notable for this book. The book shows a tan textured cover with text on the spine and cover. This copy shows some wear to the binding and spine due to age, but is overall in good condition, foxing noted but no other damages observed, measures 5.25"W x 8.75"L x 1.75"D.