Belle Starr: The Truth Behind the Wild West Legend

by Michael Wallis Narrated by Michael Wallis

Overview

In this definitive biography of the most infamous female outlaw of the nineteenth century, bestselling historian Michael Wallis challenges a notorious legacy.



In the annals of legendary Wild West desperadoes, Belle Starr is remembered to this day as the Bandit Queen. Shortly after her murder in 1889, a highly romanticized, sensational book titled Bella Starr . . . The Bandit Queen, or the Female Jesse James was published-the first in a series of high-profile portraits to brand Starr as a villain. Now, celebrated author Michael Wallis parses over a century of mythmaking to reveal the woman behind the renegade legend.



Although Starr indeed ran in the same circles as notorious outlaws Jesse James and the Younger brothers, the crimes ascribed to her were greatly embellished-including the fact that the allegedly bloodthirsty Starr more than likely never killed a single person.



Turning a redemptive eye to Belle Starr's tarnished legacy, Wallis crafts an illuminating portrait of a woman demonized for refusing to accept the genteel Victorian ideals expected of her, a woman who chose instead to live her life outside the law, riding sidesaddle with a pearl-handled Colt .45 strapped to her hip.

Editorial Reviews

Matthew Bernstein

"A wild romp where we ride shotgun with the West’s most fascinating and mythologized outlaw heroine. It may be the sizzle that sells the steak, but this new biography is just as good as it sounds."

Douglas Brinkley

"A dazzlingly written and copiously researched biography of that flamboyant outlaw from Missouri.... Stealing horses, befriending rogues, and mastering firearms, the real Belle Starr, as documented by Michael Wallis, is far more beguiling than the pulp Westerns, Woody Guthrie folksongs, and Hollywood portrayals anchored around her notorious high-stakes antics.... Highly recommended!"

Roy B. Young

"Thoroughly researched, vibrant, and well written so as to keep one’s attention, at the same time dispelling and correcting previously believed ‘facts’ that were little more than legend. ‘Definitive’ is the word for this new book!"

Rinker Buck

"An annoyance of history is our tendency to accept myth more readily than documented fact. Michael Wallis’s excellent and thorough analysis of the legend of Belle Starr explores this theme with rare insight into the lawless West of the nineteenth century."

Booklist

"A measured but fascinating account of a mythical outlaw."

Jeff Guinn

"Exhaustive research and much-needed context make Michael Wallis’s Belle Starr essential reading. The truth about Belle—and, through her many escapades and tragedies, the nature of the emerging American West—is finally here."

Kirkus Reviews

2025-03-22
The trials of a frontier woman.

Teasing through the myths and gossip swirling around Belle Starr (1848-1889), reputedly the most famous female outlaw of the 19th century, Wallis, biographer of Billy the Kid, among others, finds a complicated, defiant woman. Myra Maibelle Shirley was born in the backwoods of Missouri to a family of proud slave owners. Her father, at 42, had been married several times by the time he met 21-year-old Eliza Pennington; some of his offspring by earlier marriages were older than his new bride. John and Eliza had six children of their own: Their second son, Bud, was Myra’s favorite. They galloped together on horseback through the countryside, he taught her how to handle a gun, and by the time she was a teenager, “she was a fearless rider and a crack shot.” His death during the Civil War upended her life: She vowed, somehow, to get revenge. Educated briefly at a female academy in Carthage, Missouri, where she was one of the first students, she learned by living. Wallis captures the rousing atmosphere of the lawless west—Belle’s family moved to Texas after Carthage was burned by guerrillas—with outlaws going “on the scout” to evade capture; horse thieves; bank, train, and stagecoach robbers; and murderous gangs terrorizing communities. Although Belle never killed anyone and was convicted only once, of horse theft, her life revolved around outlaws: family, lovers, husbands. Her first husband’s escapades led to his being murdered at age 29. Another husband, a mixed-race Cherokee, was killed in an exchange of “deadly gunplay,” as was Belle herself, ambushed in a murder still unsolved. Wallis’ Belle is a brazen woman, refusing to bow to the constrictions of her time: lawless, if not an outlaw herself.

A brisk, spirited biography.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940195557775
Publisher:	HighBridge Company
Publication date:	08/12/2025
Edition description:	Unabridged