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Hoboken, NJ, U.S.A.: John Wiley & Sons Inc, 2006. 528 pages index notes b/w illustrations - This is a long-awaited book that is destined to be a classic in American biography. Gary L. Roberts has captured the life and the legend of his fellow Georgian in a manner unlikely to be excelled in our lifetime. The highly respected Roberts, who has written dozens of articles about various aspects of western history over more than four decades, is Professor Emeritus of History at Abraham Baldwin College, and is the acclaimed author of the acclaimed study of 19th century New Mexico mayhem, - Death Comes for the Chief Justice: The Slough-Rynerson Quarrel and Political Violence in New Mexico.- This book is the culmination of a lifetime of research into the life of the legendary gunfighting dentist, and Roberts often harkens back to sources he tapped many decades ago, sources long unavailable. Several features make this a work apart. There is Roberts's vivid writing style, with prose that sparkles and at times touches the reader to the core. This is especially true of the magnificently written final two chapters- lengthy analyses of the Doc Holliday legend - The Anatomy of a Western Legend, and The Measure of a Legend. Dr. Roberts brings to this field a wider view of western American history and its themes than most writers in this genre are interested in studying, placing Doc in the context of the Railroad Age, the coming of the Industrial Revolution to the American West, the closing of the frontier, and more. His feel for historical process enables him to deliver measured judgments that are convincing. Roberts' understanding of Holliday's roots in antebellum Georgia, his boyhood Civil War trials, and the chaos of the Reconstruction Era comes naturally to this author from the Peach State. Readers will find much new material on many figures and episodes, and the bringing of Doc's sometime paramour Big Nose Kate to life particularly believable. Kate is a real human being for perhaps the first time in western letters. Yet the author does not claim to have the final word on the intriguing figure of John Henry Holliday true historian that he is, he understands historical writing as part of an ongoing dialogue. To that end he has used a prodigious amount of modern research, seemingly leaving no stone unturned, and has listed his sources in a detailed and admirable section of annotated endnotes that scholars will be using for years to come. The photographs sprinkled throughout the text will add to the reader's experience. Readers interested in the sagas of Dodge City, Tombstone, and the single most famous stand-up and face each other gunfight in the history of the American West, and yet who want more than the Hollywood versions of these, will want to read this book. Doc Holliday, The Life and Legend, makes a fine companion to the 1997 biography Wyatt Earp: The Life Behind the Legend by Roberts's research colleague Casey Tefertiller. It is unlikely an accident that the titles of both books are similar. Both books have advanced our understanding of these two household names, and Roberts here has deepened our knowledge of not only the life, but the context of the life and the development and meaning of the legend of Doc Holliday.. Reprint. Soft Cover. New/No Jacket.