LIFE OF THE MARLOWS: A True Story of Frontier Life of Early Days.

Revision/Author: William Rathmell
Editor/Annotator: Robert DeArment
Publisher: University of North Texas Press, 2004
Features: Dramatis Personae (the cast of characters), introduction, annotations, photos, illustrations, bibliography, index.

Review by: The Man Behind the Mask

Bob DeArment exhausts me.

No, it has nothing to do with the way he writes books and articles. They are some of the best of the best, featuring incredible research and great writing. And it’s not that the books weigh that much. At least individually.

It’s just that the man is so prolific. I can’t keep up with him, with his seemingly ceaseless flow of writings about the Old West. But I also can’t do without his works. They are essentials.

Right now, for example, he’s just come out with the real story of “Longhair Jim” Courtright. And he’s also edited a new version of the first book on the Marlows of Texas, five brothers who ran afoul of the law. Four were in shackles and chains, being transferred to the jail in Weatherford, TX, when vigilantes ambushed them. Two of the Marlow boys were killed and a third severely wounded in a story that was later adapted for the silver screen production “The Sons of Katy Elder” starring John Wayne. The movie does not include the follow-up to the shootings: the arrest and trial of some members of the lynch mob; the book does deal with that.

William Rathmell wrote the original book in cooperation with the two surviving Marlows, and then he revised it some 40 years later in 1931. His work served as the basis for later writings by William MacLeod Raine, C.L. Sonnichsen, and Glenn Shirley, among others. Rathmell’s language is classic Victorian potboiler, with overplayed emotions and exclamations. DeArment has left that alone.

But he has corrected some grammatical and spelling errors, and inserted some needed punctuation to provide a better flow for the reader. He’s also added copious annotations, some of which correct factual errors and others which give additional information about the time, place and people. And in doing so, DeArment has given new life to what had been a fairly obscure and hard to find Old West history.

So, another month, another outstanding effort by the man from Ohio.

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