Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
The Collected Works of Billy the Kid  By  cover art

The Collected Works of Billy the Kid

By: Michael Ondaatje
Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $7.76

Buy for $7.76

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

From the Booker Prize-winning author of The English Patient comes a visionary novel, a virtuoso synthesis of storytelling, history, and myth.

William Bonney, a.k.a. "Billy the Kid", killed his first man when he was 12. By the time he was 21 he had, by his own reckoning, slain 19 more. In the intervening years, he had become "Billy the Kid", bloodthirsty ogre and outlaw saint.

Drawing on contemporary accounts, period photographs, dime novels, and his own fund of empathy and imagination, Michael Ondaatje traces Billy's passage across the blasted landscape of 1880 New Mexico and the collective unconscious of his country.

©1970 Michael Ondaatje (P)2009 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

" The Collected Works of Billy the Kid strains one's powers of description....Ondaatje's eye for detail is wonderful and he uses it poetically, with superb restraint." (Larry McMurtry)
"Wonderful....Ondaatje's language is clean and energetic, with the pop of bullets. This is literature, art." (Annie Dillard)

What listeners say about The Collected Works of Billy the Kid

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    25
  • 4 Stars
    15
  • 3 Stars
    6
  • 2 Stars
    6
  • 1 Stars
    6
Performance
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    24
  • 4 Stars
    9
  • 3 Stars
    8
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    2
Story
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    19
  • 4 Stars
    10
  • 3 Stars
    7
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    7

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

You need to actually read this book

This is one of my favorite books to give as a gift. I love it so much, but you really need a physical copy to get the feel of the poems and prose.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Waste of time

Listened to 1/2 an hour…a 1/2 an hour of my life wasted.,

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Horrible!

Does anyone believe that Billy The Kid would have a stream of concousness like that written!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Not what I was hoping for.

I understand it was the “Works” of Billy the Kid, but very choppy. No smooth transitions from idea to idea or from story to poem. Basically, it was all over the place! The reader’s voice was cool sounding, yet very bland while reading. Maybe he felt lost as well because the book was put together so sloppily.

I was so glad I got this book for free as a member. I can now delete it from my library. Had I paid for, I would definitely still return / exchange it. Too bad to, because I love reading books, stories, and articles about old western outlaws and lawmen.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!