Walter Noble Burns

Walter Noble Burns
Born	October 24, 1866 Lebanon, Kentucky
Died	April 15, 1932 (aged 65) Chicago, Illinois
Occupation	Historian Author Researcher Journalist
Years active	1900–1932

Walter Noble Burns (1866-1932) was a writer of Western history and a Western fiction author, notable for his book, The Saga of Billy the Kid (1926).^[1]

Family

Born on October 24, 1866 ^[2] in Lebanon, Kentucky, he was the son of Thomas E. Burns (1837-1908), a colonel in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Walter's mother, Mary Crisella Noble (1847-1871) had died when he was four years old.^[3] He married Rose Marie Hoke on 10 November 1902.^[4]

Career

Walter Noble Burns served with the 1st Kentucky Infantry during the Spanish-American War in 1898. In 1900, he moved to Chicago, Illinois and began a career as a journalist, literary critic and crime reporter. After World War I, Burns retired as a reporter, then concentrated his writing about Western American legends.^[5]

Publications

• A Year With a Whaler, by Walter Noble Burns, 1913
• The Saga of Billy the Kid, by Walter Noble Burns, 1926
• Tombstone: an Iliad of the Southwest, by Walter Noble Burns, 1927
• The One-way Ride: The red trail of Chicago gangland from prohibition to Jake Lingle, by Walter Noble Burns, 1928
• The Robin Hood of El Dorado: The Saga of Joaquin Murrieta, Famous Outlaw of California's Age of Gold, by Walter Noble Burns, 1932

Biography

Mark J. Dworkin^[6] (1946-2012) compiled a biography about Walter Noble Burns, entitled American Mythmaker: Walter Noble Burns and the Legends of Billy the Kid, Wyatt Earp, and Joaquín Murrieta. Dworkin died in 2012, prior to the completion of this book, which was published in 2015 by the University of Oklahoma Press.^[7]

External links

• Worldcat Overview & works, Walter Noble Burns
• Walter Noble Burns Papers, Special Collections, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona
• History.net: Walter Noble Burns, The Wild West's Premier Mythmaker
• Goodreads, The Saga of Billy the Kid
• American Mythmaker: Walter Noble Burns and the Legends of Billy the Kid, Wyatt Earp, and Joaquín Murrieta: By Mark J. Dworkin, University of Oklahoma Press, 2015.
• Preston Lewis Author: Words of the West - Billy the Who?

References

1. American Mythmaker: Walter Noble Burns and the Legends of Billy the Kid, Wyatt Earp, and Joaquín Murrieta. Mark J. Dworkin, University of Oklahoma Press, Feb 27, 2015, Epilogue.
2. Chicago, Illinois death certificate, Walter Noble Burns.
3. "", Mary Crisella Noble Burns at Findagrave.
4. "", Rose Marie Hoke Burns at Findagrave.
5. "", History.net: Walter Noble Burns, The Wild West's Premier Mythmaker.
6. "", Mark J. Dworkin at Findagrave.
7. "", American Mythmaker: Walter Noble Burns and the Legends of Billy the Kid, Wyatt Earp, and Joaquín Murrieta: By Mark J. Dworkin, University of Oklahoma Press, 2015.

• ", Walter Noble Burns at Findagrave.