WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE: The True Life...

WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE: The True Life Accounts of the Desperadoes of the Wild West edited by Stephen Goldman (Historical Briefs: $19.95; 200 pp., paperback original). This collection of reprinted newspaper pages chronicles the sordid careers of Black Bart, Butch Cassidy, Belle Starr, the Dalton Brothers et al. Although Hollywood has conferred an aura of glamour on these desperadoes, their contemporaries regarded them as the dregs of society. “Wanted Dead or Alive” is sure to please Western history buffs, although it may alter their views of such infamous figures as the “notorious train robber, bandit and outlaw,” Frank James.