Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875 - 1950)

His Life:

Eventually, Edgar joined the US Cavalry and was sent to Arizona. That didn't work out either, and with family intervention, Edgar gave up the military life. In 1900 he married Emma Centennia Hulbert (divorced in 1934); they had two sons and one daughter).

Success is Slow:

In July, 1911 Burroughs, now thirty-five, was still searching for his niche in life. At the time, he was running an unsuccessful business, trying to sell pencil sharpeners using door-to-door salesmen paid on commission. Time hung heavy on his hands as he waited for the salesmen to report, and to pass away the hours he began to write.

Begins Writing

The result was his first published story, Under the Moon of Mars, which appeared in 1911 in "All-Story" a pulp magazine introducing the popular invincible hero John Carter, who is transported to Mars apparently by astral projection, following a battle with Apaches in Arizona. The 'Martian' series eventually reached eleven books.

This first story became A Princess of Mars in book form which is considered to be one of the best science fiction adventures ever written. No joke, if you have never read it, I envy you the experience of discovering it for the first time.

He submitted this story to Thomas N. Metcalf, editor of "All- Story", using the pseudonym "Normal Bean" to indicate that although the story was fantastic in the extreme, the author himself was merely an average person. Metcalf, or one of his proofreaders, later changed Burroughs' pseudonym to "Norman," believing the author's original choice to be a misprint. "Metcalf paid Burroughs $400 for magazine rights to the story," and ran it as a six-part serial from February through July, 1912." Through his acceptance of Burroughs' Martian fantasy, Lupoff continued, "Metcalf gave first public exposure to a science fiction classic, a story which ... is still read as vivid high adventure ... purely on its own merits as an engrossing story." "The world," declared Lin Carter in Imaginary Worlds: The Art of Fantasy, "was never quite the same again."

Tarzan is born:

Tarzan, through popular acceptance and demand controlled Edgar's future. Especially, after the movies began (in 1918) and Tarzan moved into the folk culture of the nation. When the Olympic swimming champion Johnny Weissmuller took the role in the 1930's, the films became really popular.

With the Tarzan series well underway, Burroughs turned his attention to other projects. In February, 1913, he completed a story that would form the basis of a third series which ranks with his Martian and Tarzan books. In At the Earth's Core the world meets the David Innes and goes on a journey to an inner world. Burroughs returned to Pellucidar in a sequel published the following year--called simply Pellucidar--and followed that story with others spread, like the Martian and Tarzan stories, over a series of years.

He also wrote titles that stand alone. Among the best of Burroughs' non-series titles is the trilogy of stories published together in book form under the title The Land That Time Forgot. The Land That Time Forgot is a science-fiction novel that it is a fascinating fantasy while also being a thrilling adventure story.."

Success at Last:

Burroughs' prolificacy, however, was only one factor in his success. "A powerful influence was his conditioning in the business world, an emphasis on dollars-and-cents practicality. Early in his career Burroughs learned the value of selling only the original serial rights to a story, retaining future serial rights and book rights. He had surrendered all serial rights to "Under the Moons of Mars" and "Tarzan of the Apes"; this meant that any money gained from future magazine publication of the stories would go to the company that originally published them, and not to the author.

By mid-1913, Burroughs had contracted with an agency to distribute The Return of Tarzan and his story "The Cave Girl" to newspapers, bringing that money into his own pocket. He set up competitive bidding between editors who wanted his stories, and insisted on being paid top per-word rates, keeping careful record of the number of words in his stories. Years later, he broke with established publishers, choosing to publish his books himself.

In 1913, he suddenly moved his family from Chicago to California, settling in Coronado, and entering one of his most productive periods. "His earnings, collected during the summer of 1913 before he left California," wrote Porges, "totaled more than $4,600 from sales of stories and from the Evening World [newspaper] syndication. In California payments ... had brought him approximately $6,000. He had written approximately 413,000 words." In 1913 Burroughs founded his own publishing house Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.

Tarzana, California:

With his move to California, Burroughs seemed to think that he had left Tarzan behind. He stated in a letter to a friend--cited by Porges--that "I think that I can never write another Tarzan story and I am not posing when I say that I do not see how the reading public can stand for any more of them if they are as fed up on Tarzan as I am.... I feel that I have said and re-said a dozen times everything that there is to say about Tarzan."

Tarzan and the Movies:

Certainly the yodelling cry and the "Me Tarzan--you Jane" exchange that became identified with Johnny Weismuller's portrayal of the ape-man was never part of Burroughs' original conception of the character. For a time in the 1920s Burroughs tried producing his own Tarzan pictures. Eventually, however, he resigned himself to Hollywood's tendency to change his works.

Although the less said about the horrid movies about Tarzan the better - there is one incident that is humorous.

Burroughs did manage his own small revenge on the film industry. In Tarzan and the Lion-Man, first published in 1933, Burroughs told the story of a film crew on location in Africa who run into difficulties and are rescued by Tarzan. In the final chapter, entitled "Hello, Hollywood," John Clayton visits America to see what Hollywood has done to the people he rescued in Africa the year before. He is spotted by a casting director who thinks he would make a good Tarzan. Then the casting director introduces Clayton to Mr. Goldeen, the production manager: "Goldeen's eyes surveyed Clayton critically for an instant; then the production manager made a gesture with his palm as though waving them away. He shook his head. 'Not the type,' he snapped. 'Not the type, at all.'" "As Clayton followed the casting director from the room," Burroughs continued, "the shadow of a smile touched his lips."

Instead, Clayton is cast as the white hunter Tarzan rescues from a lion, while a professional dancer is given the role of Tarzan. During filming of Clayton's scene, the lion goes berserk--the actor playing Tarzan bolts, and Clayton leaps on the beast and stabs it to death. "Clayton leaped erect," Burroughs related; "he placed one foot upon his kill and raised his face to the heavens; then he checked himself and that same slow smile touched his lips." "An excited man rushed onto the set," Burroughs concluded. "It was Benny Goldeen, the production manager. 'My God!' he cried. 'You've killed our best lion. He was worth ten thousand dollars if he was worth a cent. You're fired!'"

Burroughs died of a heart ailment on March 19, in 1950. After Burroughs's death, enthusiasm for his books gradually waned. While criticized as repetitious and clumsy, Burroughs's stories share the same colourful imagination familiar from the classic works of H.G. Wells and H. Rider Haggard.

His influence:

Burroughs's novels have also became target for academic research where Tarzan is seen as "the ultimate self-made, self-taught man, who challenges the restrictions of modern civilization."

Several of Burroughs' characters have achieved literary immortality. John Carter remains an active property in Hollywood, and Tarzan of the Apes continues to appear (if only sporadically) on movie and television screens. But they exist most vividly in the minds of Burroughs' many readers. "Tarzan lives on."

From the Tarzan Museum Site

"It seems a common scenario that most of the true Tarzan fans probably first read Tarzan of the Apes when they were somewhere around ten years old. And thereafter lived in the trees forever, at least on some inner cerebral landscape. Maybe there were times along the way when they almost forgot, but not quite. Somewhere hidden, lurking, always was that special, inexplicable, primal yet noble emotion instilled by Mr. Burroughs. It is a feeling that we carry on and hold close, for it is the best of us. Our true essence that remains after the facade of civilization crumbles away."

His Books:

Of the 26 Tarzan title, the first five are described. (Some consider these to be the best Tarzan books) - All of the Martian Series is shown but not summarized. (Many fans consider the Mars Series to be one of the finest Science Fiction series of all time. - Long may John Carter live. ) - All of the Venus Series are shown and the series is described. - Long live Carson Napier! - And, finally, the Pellucidar books - David Innes and the world at the earth's core are also part of our modern mythology.

The world famous protagonist in Tarzan books is John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, whose aristocratic parents, John Clayton and his wife, Lady Alice, are abandoned on the west coast of Africa by mutinous sailors. Lady Alice dies insane and his father is killed by a great ape named Kerchak. Tarzan raised by an ape, Kala, and grows into a leader of the hairy tribe due to his intelligence and fighting skills. In the jungle Tarzan learns to read when he founds a book from the remnants of his parents hut. Another party of whites is marooned at the same west coast - the Porters from Baltimore and William Clayton, the present Lord Greystoke. During the tale, Tarzan finds love, becomes a hero, and finds his aristocratic roots. Tarzan falls in love with Jane Porter, but in the Tarzan of the Apes, Jane rejects his offer of marriage and accepts the proposal of William Greystoke.

The Return chronicles Tarzan's reversion to the wilderness; rejected by Jane Porter in favor of his titled cousin whom he rescued from a forest fire in the Wisconsin wilderness, he returns to France and D'Arnot. To prevent further injury, D'Arnot arranges an appointment for his friend in Africa. Bound for Capetown, however, Tarzan is attacked by the same villains whom he had bested in Countess Olga's chambers, and is tossed overboard. He reaches shore, rejects western civilization, and tries briefly to take up his life again among the great apes. That, too, proves unsatisfying; Tarzan joins a band of natives, the Waziri, becomes their chief, and travels with them to the city of Opar, a treasure trove still inhabited by the remnants of an ancient race. Jane, in the meantime, has been marooned (again) on the coast of Africa with her father, her fiancee William Clayton, and a few companions. "Eventually," Lupoff explained, "... William Clayton conveniently dies, D'Arnot turns up with another French rescue party, and in a double wedding ceremony officiated over by Professor Porter (who is a clergyman as well as a scholar), Tarzan marries Jane and Lord Tennington marries Hazel, Jane's best friend."

This is the third book in the Tarzan series." "The Beasts of Tarzan" finds the ape lord settled in civilized London as John Clayton, Lord Greystoke. But he becomes the target of his enemy, Nikolas Rokoff and his henchman Alexis Paulvitch. The pair abducts Tarzan's Jane and their infant son Jack. Tarzan ends up stranded on a desert island, but with the help of Sheeta the panther and Akut the great ape he makes it back to the mainland. There he meets Mugambi, the giant chief of he Wagambi tribe, a character who goes on to become Tarzan's lifelong friend and ally This odd group heads off together after the kidnappers into the deep jungle and when Tarzan finds them he lets his inner beast come up with creative ways of making them pay for the mistake of taking his wife and son.

Paulvitch had survived the vengeance of Tarzan and now wants to even the score by luring young Jack Clayton away from London. However, his plan is foiled when Jack escapes with the help of Akut, the great ape. The pair flee to the same African jungle where Tarzan was raised a generation before. It there that young Jack Clayton establishes his own reputation as Korak the Killer. Not only does he find Korak find his own place in the jungle and amidst the great apes, he also rescues Meriem, a beautiful young woman, from a band of Arab raiders. Meriem turns out to be the daughter of Armand Jacot, a Foreign Legion Captain who is also the Prince de Cadrenet, and therefore a fitting mate for the son of Lord Greystoke.

In the forgotten city of Opar, stood the altars where the ancient city offered blood sacrifices for the Flaming God.Also there were vaults piled high with the gold destined for the fabled Lost Atlantis. And there La, the beautiful high priestess, still dreamed of Tarzan, who had escaped her knife before. Around her, the hideous priests vowed that he should never escape again. For now Tarzan was returning, and they were waiting for him. Tarzan planned to avoid La and the priests. But he could not avoid the earthquake that struck him down in the vaults and left him without memory of his wife or home-- only with what memory he had had as a child among the savage apes who reared him.

So begins the first segment in a cycle that, according to John Flint Roy in A Guide to Barsoom, "is undoubtedly one of the greatest science fiction series of all time." Burroughs created a fully-realized fantastic world. "Taking the planet Mars as a basis Burroughs created a world of dead seabeds, towering mountains, polar ice caps, underground rivers, weird plants, beautiful flowers, and strange beasts. He peopled it with four different human races and one semi-human. He gave it a history, several phases of civilization, and an assortment of religions. He added dauntless heroes, beautiful maidens, evil villains, and fearful monsters--all the ingredients necessary for a series of thrilling adventures on any world. His wonderful creations, which have enchanted several generations of readers, include the eight-legged beasts of burden and transport called thoats; the vicious yet loyal ten-legged calot, equivalent to an earthly dog; the egg-laying females of the Martians; marvelous fliers held aloft by a special "eighth ray", and special rifles and pistols with ranges of about 300 miles.

David Innes, heir of a Connecticut fortune goes on an experimental trip with inventor Abner Perry, who has just developed a subterranean prospector, a machine for burrowing through the earth's crust in search of valuable minerals. Due to an oversight on Perry's part, however, the machine proves unsteerable and burrows straight down into the earth. David and Abner resign themselves to certain death, but at the last moment they break into a new world in the center of the earth, a world called Pellucidar. Pellucidar is illuminated by a single unchanging light source--it is a land without night, inhabited by many strange creatures, including the wolf-like hyaenadons, the Sagoths, semi-intelligent ape-like creatures, the Mahars, super-intelligent winged reptiles, and human men and women with a stone-age technology, including David Innes' love Dian the Beautiful.

David Innes and his scientist friend Abner Perry return to the inner world. At the end of "At the Earth's Core" the duo had returned to the surface only to discover that Hooja the Sly One has substituted a Mahar, one of the rhamphorhynchus-like sentient reptiles that tyrannized Pellucidar, for Dian the Beautiful, the woman Innes loves. So the plan is to get back down there, rescue Dian, and if time allows end the exploitation of the primitive humans by the evil Mahars. The good news is that Innes returns to the inner world, but the bad news is that he ends up in a different part of Pellucidar where he has no friends and new enemies. What makes Pellucidar a bit different from the rest of the Burroughs fantasy adventures is the unique geography of the inner world and the prominence of smart guy scientist Abner as a supporting character (i.e., the brains of the outfit).

So begins the last major series by Edgar Rice Burroughs: the Venus novels. When it first appeared as a serial in the pulp magazine Argosy in 1932, Burroughs had already written Tarzan novels, most of the Mars series, and the novels of Pellucidar. The Venus novels were created partially as a response to Otis Adelbert Kline, a pulp author who wrote very much in the style of Burroughs. When Kline created a series of Venus-set novels made to imitate Burroughs's Martian novels, Burroughs fired back with his own series on Venus. He created a new hero, Carson Napier, who somehow manages to fire his rocket at Mars and end up landing on Venus. A jungle planet with tree-living humanoids battling a tyranny attempting to erase all class boundaries called 'The Thorists' (rather thinly disguised communists) and a horde of other monstrous menaces. Napier joins the fight against the Thorists and tries romancing the beautiful but unobtainable Duare.

By the end of that first novel Carson and his beloved were separated by a cruel fate (she is carried away by a flying creature and he is captured by a Thorist spy, and the time has come for him to do something about that. Carson is held captive and is put in a room where there are seven doors: one leads to escape, the rest to horrible deaths. This is a fairly interesting start to the story and ERB has some fun coming up with a way for his hero to get out of this predicament. Carson, who is given the name Albargan ("No-Hair-Man") by the natives, catches up with Duare, who keeps insisting that he is too low to speak to her since she is a janjong and he is a nobody.

This time around Carson Napier, has to deal with a political faction called the Zani, a rather obvious anagram of (gasp!) Nazi. ERB develops some strong parallels: the Zanis come to power because their nation had lost a war, and then they discriminate, imprison, and torture those of an inferior race (the Atorians in this case). To top things out, the ruling tyrant is named Mephis and his followers cheer "Maltu Mephis!" whenever he appears. Of course it does not take long for Duare to be recaptured and Carson has to rescue her. Adolf Hitler is not the only one disguised in "Carson of Venus," as our hero dons a series of disguises throughout this adventure (the best of which is prince Vodo of Vodaro). That makes the title rather ironic since Carson is probably the least used name by which our hero is called in the entire novel.

"Escape on Venus" was originally published during 1941-42 as a four part series of stories that could stand on their own: "Slaves of the Fishmen," "Goddess of Fire," "The Living Dead," and "War on Venus." Once again Carson Napier is telepathically relaying his adventures to Burroughs, who was living in Hawaii (where he would witness the attack on Pearl Harbor). Having been the prisoner of Mintep, jong of the tree city of Kooaad on Amtor (what the people of Venus call their planet), Carson had fallen in love with the princess Duare. After a series of adventures, during which Carson build the first airplane, when last we left our hero and his lady Carson had rescued Duare from her own father, who was upset she had lowered herself to love an Earthman. First off they head for Karbol, the frozen wasteland that the Amtors believe is the edge of their world. There of course, Duare is captured, Carson has to rescue her, and the next set of romantic adventures is on.

Other books of Interest

Written during the early months of America's involvement in the First World War and fuelled by Burroughs' strong anti-German prejudices, the stories tell how a German submarine and the English boat crew that captures it are drawn by a magnetic force to a mysterious uncharted island, which they call Caspak. There they find prehistoric monsters like those that haunt Pellucidar but, unlike Burroughs' Inner World explorers, they also discover no less than seven types of hominids. These range from the ape-like Ho-lu to the Galu, who are identical with modern man. Burroughs also creates a special relationship between the different hominids through a unique concept of evolution: "In Caspak," explained Lupoff, "evolution is not a titanic, eons-long process in which each individual member of each species plays but a tiny role. Rather, each individual undergoes the full development of his species." Inhabitants of Caspak begin as primitive life forms at the southern end of the island and, as they move northwards, evolve slowly into different types. Those that can survive the entire trip end up as Galus.

The hero of this story is Waldo Emerson Smith-Jones, your basic bookworm from Boston who ends up having to fend for his life in the jungle. ERB really stacks the deck against poor Waldo, who is in bad health and terrified of shadows in the night. By the end of the first chapter he is a total wreck, convinced he is being stalked and on the verge of madness. Attacked by a group of savages, Waldo is aided by a half-naked young woman, who saves him. In their own secluded "Little Eden," Waldo learns the language of the young woman, whose name is Nadara. However, as is usually the case in one of ERB's pulp fiction adventures, Nadara has some unwanted suitors and believes that Waldo, whom she has named "Thandar" the Brave One, will defend her honor and fight for her. However, Waldo is not absolutely sure about that, especially once he sees Flatfoot.

The Moon Maid is a tale of adventure in space, of the secret of the moon -- of humanlike quadrupeds and stranger fantastic things, all wrapped around an idea like something Robert Heinlein would write. Strange and true: at the moment Burroughs was writing Russia had just fallen to the communists, and terrible things were happening to personal liberty in that land. And so he wrote about fighting for the things he believed in, and so he made no bones about his political leanings -- or his fear for the future, not just for America, but for the world at large. "Edgar Rice Burroughs . . . has probably changed more destinies than any other writer in American history." -- Ray Bradbury -

Websites

Tarzan.org
This is the official site for everything Tarzan.

Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan.com
If you are a collector, you may want to visit here also.

Find most of the novels here in the erbmania section.