Amazon Outlaws Category:  Biography Publisher: Elliott and Clark ISBN-10:  1880216361 Type: Non-Fiction Pages: 224 Copyright: 1997 Outlaws draws upon verified accounts to tell a fascinating story of the most famous band of outlaws in American history. Marley deftly steps through the accumulated legends of the James-Younger Gang to weave a factual and fascinating tale of adventure, terror, grief, and revenge. No book before has looked in as great detail at how the Gang – some of whom were former Confederate guerillas – were driven by a seething bitterness toward the Yankees who had brutalized their families during the War Between the States. Marley offers compelling evidence that for the Gang, the banks and trains they robbed represented the continued exploitation by the North of the vanquished South. The Gang’s mythic status owed largely to fellow Confederates who felt that the Gang’s robberies were a justified retribution against the oppressive Northern establishment.  Outlaws details the previously unexplored motives for the Gang’s decade-long crime streak. In doing so, Marley brings the brothers as well as their families and associates to vivid life. Adding to the author’s authoritative text are some 200 photographs of the Jameses, the Youngers, and their relatives, accomplices, and victims – three quarters of which have never been published.     Excerpt Cole Younger and Frank James granted a combined interview to a reporter from the Nashville American while they were touring with the Great Cole Younger and Frank James Historical Wild West Show in 1903. Asked again to name his accomplices during the Northfield, Minnesota, bank robbery a quarter of a century before, Cole repeated his long-standing denial of ever having been affiliated with that had come to be known as the James-Younger Gang. The old ex-outlaw even went so far as to deny the existence of such a gang: "The James boys were not with me in this raid, and we never were together in any other." Frank James also refused, as he had for years, to discuss any illegal activities. Preferring to play the role of the old war hero, Frank announced, "I am going this season with our show, and then I am going to retire." He added, "I saw a chance by doing this to feather my nest in old age. I am going to buy a farm when this season ends, and then settle down there to pass the rest of my days in peace and quiet." That the two men were alive to grant such an interview was remarkable in itself. These two ex-Confederates, aged fifty-nine and sixty in 1903, had weathered turbulant and terrible times. Frank and Cole, together with their brothers, survived fierce guerrilla warfare, history-making bank and train robberies, life spent either in seclusion or on the run, and in the case of the Youngers, long decades behind bars. They had suffered gunshot wounds and had seen their brothers - Jesse James and John, Bob and Jim Younger - dies as a result of violence: from a deliberate and government-orchestrated assassination, from murderous gunplay, from illness brought on by gunshot wounds and from suicide. As young men they had seen the northern establishment brutalize their families and demolish their prosperous farms and businesses. They fought the battle of their lives at a time when life as they knew it ceased to exist and the privileged world in which they played an integral roll fell victim to the worst internal confusion and strife the United States of America has ever known. The determined political activism and retaliation of the James-Younger Gang was viewed by many, including themselves, as a wrecking of vengeance that was well deserved. They pushed beyond the limits of the acceptable confines of society in an attempt to redeem a dignity only they could define. There was no limit to their tenancity, and they reaped the rewards of adventure, entertainment, terror, and grief as a result of their ruthlessness. Had Cole Younger and Frank James earned the right to retire? Many people at the time thought not, though many did feel the fact that Cole and Frank had survived the Border War, the bloodier Civil War, and the continuing devastation of Reconstruction qualified the two for a measure of respect. The two old Rebels who stood before the reporter in Nashville undoubtably had regrets. Yet Frank and Cole were well on their way to becoming international legends; that they had survived the exceptional lifestyles they had chosen and had been rewarded with the notoriety they sought is a testiment to their perseverance. Vengence, justification, devotion, malice, fidelity, and treachery are all words that are used often in the telling of the James-Younger Gang story. The Gang originated out of three men's urgent need to take action during the oppressive Reconstruction. It was terminated when that urgency gave way to instablity, greed, and misplaced family allegiance. Hollywood has failed in its effort to date to create a tale more captivating than the real lives these men led. The genesis, the exodus, and all the points between make the exploits of the James-Younger Gang a fascinating story unlike any other in history. Frank and Jesse James, Cole, Jim, John and Bob Younger are permanent American legends.

True West
You cannot understand the history of the post-Civil War West unless you understand the history of the James-Younger Gang. Marley Brant knows their story as well as anyone living, and she captures all of its excitement, adventure, and human drama in Outlaws: The illustrated History of the James-Younger Gang.

Actor Stacy Keach
The mythology of the Old West comes alive in Outlaws. It is virtually the best book around on the subject, and the photographs make it all the more entertaining.