Ted P. Yeatman will long be remembered as one of the foremost scholars of the James Gang ever. After a long battle with illness Ted passed away recently. The Baltimore Sun ran a nice obituary.
The author was lauded for his truly groundbreaking biography of the James Gang, which was published in 2001. He was featured in a spot on C-SPAN's Booknotes program, archived online here.
His book was soon overshadowed by a nicely written and spectacularly successful biography of Jesse James by T.J. Stiles, which Random House published the following year. Yeatman was bitter about the comparative success of that later book, both privately and publicly, perhaps understandably. The tension between the authors erupted online. (For details, see T.J. Stiles, Ted Yeatman, and the Jesse James Journalism Extravaganza.)
Yeatman lamented difficulties with his now defunct publisher. He did not make as much from the book as he thought it warranted. He complained that heavy-handed editing had introduced errors in one middle chapter and also cited a lack of publicity for the title (a virtually universal authorial lament).
But I think his book was much more successful than he gave himself credit for. When I was in my local Barnes and Noble a couple weeks ago, it was still featured prominently on the American history shelf, full cover facing out. I don't think his noteworthy contribution to the James Gang history will ever go out of print.
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