Legends of the West: The Life and Legacy of the Sundance Kid

*Includes pictures of Sundance and other important people and places in his life.

*Explains the origins of the name Sundance Kid

*Discusses the legends and mysteries surrounding the Sundance Kid's life and death, and how his legacy grew. 

*Includes a Bibliography for further reading.

*Includes a Table of Contents. 


Space may be the final frontier, but no frontier has ever captured the American imagination like the “Wild West”, which still evokes images of dusty cowboys, outlaws, gunfights, gamblers, and barroom brawls over 100 years after the West was settled. A constant fixture in American pop culture, the 19th century American West continues to be vividly and colorful portrayed not just as a place but as a state of mind. In Charles River Editors’ Legends of the West series, readers can get caught up to speed on the lives of America’s most famous frontier figures in the time it takes to finish a commute, while learning interesting facts long forgotten or never known. 


The Wild West has made legends out of many men through the embellishment of their stories, such as crediting Billy the Kid and Wild Bill Hickok for killing far more people than they actually did. But it has also made icons out of outlaws like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid based on the mystery and uncertainty surrounding their crimes and deaths, allowing speculation and legend to fill in the gaps. 


Harry Longabaugh has long been known mostly for his interesting nickname, the Sundance Kid, and his association with Butch Cassidy. Though he is commonly associated with Cassidy, the duo were actually just two members of a full-fledged gang known as the Wild Bunch that conducted robberies in the Southwest and became legendary for their shootouts and their escapes from the law. The Wild Bunch has been credited for the longest successful stretch of bank robberies in American history. 


Though Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid are the two most famous members of the Wild Bunch and will probably always be associated with each other, there’s no indication that they had any particularly close friendship or relationship aside from being members of the same gang. In fact, they might not have been linked together at all but for the fact that they both chose to flee the country for Argentina to escape justice. It was in South America that the famous outlaws are believed to have met their ultimate fate in a shootout with Bolivian soldiers, but the mystery and controversy surrounding that shootout (and whether the two bandits were actually them) have helped ensure their place in Western lore. As with so many other legends of the West, people continue to speculate that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid survived and lived out the rest of their lives. 


Legends of the West: The Life and Legacy of the Sundance Kid chronicles the outlaw’s life, while also analyzing his legacy and the mythology that has enveloped his story, attempting to separate fact from fiction to determine what the notorious robber was really like. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events in his life, you will learn about the Sundance Kid like you never have before, in no time at all.