[WESTERN AMERICANA]. [EARP, Wyatt, subject]. LAKE, Stuart N. Wyatt Earp Frontier Marshall. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1931. 8vo. Illustrated. 392 pp. Publisher?s full orange cloth, front board and spine stamped in blue, lacking dust jacket (binding rubbed with loss to blue stamping, spine and corners bumped and edgeworn, spine a bit toned, front hinge repaired, rfep. lacking, text toned, wrinkled (most likely from exposure to moisture). Fair. FIRST EDITION, PRESENTATION COPY, INSCRIBED TO ANCIENT HISTORIAN, WARDE FOWLER ON THE FFEP.: ?For Warde Fowler, Who knows a story when he sees it, and what is necessary to ?corn? [?] a story, with the hope that this will strike him as a piece of sound reporting. Most sincerely Stuart N. Lake Los Angeles, California November 2, 1931?. This inscription hints at one of the major criticisms of this book ? that most of the book is a stylized and fictional version of Earp?s life ? mythologizing him as an incorruptible lawman who brought law and order to the West, instead of the flawed figure that he truly was. This book, for all its flaws, was the first biography of Earp, published two years after his death. Measurements: 9 x 7 x 2?.