Synopses & Reviews
Who was Belle Starr? What was she that so many myths surround her? Born in Carthage, Missouri, in 1848, the daughter of a well-to-do hotel owner, she died forty-one years later, gunned down near her cabin in the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma. After her death she was called and#147;a bandit queen,and#8221; and#147;a female Jesse James,and#8221; and#147;the Petticoat Terror of the Plains.and#8221; Fantastic legends proliferated about her. In this book Glenn Shirley sifts through those myths and unearths the facts.
In a highly readable and informative style Shirley presents a complex and intriguing portrait. Belle Starr loved horses, music, the outdoors-and outlaws. Familiar with some of the worst bad men of her day, she was, however, convicted of no crime worse than horse thievery. Shirley also describes the historical context in which Belles Starr lived. After knowing the violence of the Civil War as a child in the Ozarks, She moves to Dallas in the 1860s and married a former Confederate guerilla who specialized in armed robbery. After he was killed, she found a home among renegade Cherokees in the Indian Territory, on her second husbandand#8217;s allotment. She traveled as far west as Los Angeles to escape the law and as far north as Detroit to go to jail. She married three times and had two children, whom she idolized and tormented. Ironically she was shot when she had decided to go straight, probably murdered by a neighbor who feared that she would turn him in to the police.
This book will find a wide readership among western-history and outlaw buffs, folklorists, sociologists, and regional historians. Shirleyand#8217;s summary of the literature about Belle Starr is as interesting as the true story of Belle herself, who has become the Westand#8217;s best-known woman outlaw.
Review
"Books, articles, poems, songs, and movies have described her as a 'bandit queen' or as a 'female Jesse James.' She was neither. In Belle Starr and Her Times, a book that is likely to become the standard reference on this subject, noted western writer Glenn Shirley examines the extensive popular literature surrounding Belle Starr and compares it to the historical record. Shirley does a good job of sorting out the numerous disagreements between the two. Belle Starr emerges from Shirleys detailed analysis as a tough, independent woman who lived in an unsettled and difficult time. She associated with western outlaws, and was herself convicted once of horse theft." Choice
Review
"Belle is revealed to have been a complex woman. She tended sick neighbors, shared favorite recipes with other women, sought gentility for herself and daughter Pearl, and wandered off happily with books and a pillow for a day of reading. But she was a convicted horse theif whose home for years served as a hideout for fugitives such as Jesse James....'It seems as if I have more trouble than any person,' lamented Belle in an 1876 letter (p. 130). Most of the trouble she brought on herself, which renders her all the more fascinating to twentieth-century readers." Southwestern Historical Quarterly
Review
"For aficionados of the outlaw-West, Belle Starr and Her Times will make intriguing reading. Like a good detective, Shirley has assembled the major writings and legends concerning Belle Starr, searched them for similarities and disparities, and compared them with primary sources that were either overlooked or carelessly used by earlier writers." Great Plains Quarterly
About the Author
Glenn Shirley, an authority on the Old West, has written many books and hundreds of articles for anthologies, journals, and magazines. He is the author of Temple Houston: Lawyer with a Gun; West of Hell?s Fringe: Crime, Criminals, and the Federal Peace Officer in Oklahoma Territory, 1889-1907; and Shotgun for Hire: The Story of ?Deacon? Jim Miller, Killer of Pat Garrett, all published by the University of Oklahoma Press.