Edgar Rice Burroughs

American novelist, creator of the world famous character of Tarzan, one of the indispensable icons of popular culture. Burroughs also published science fiction and crime novels, some 26 novels dealt with the Apeman. Critics have considered Burroughs's fiction often crudely written and chauvinist. His books, however, are still widely read and usually more interesting than the films. It is true that Burroughs often portrayed Africans, Arabs or Asians as evil or comic, but the stories also contain several elements that have kept them 'politically correct': Waziri warriors are brave, and his cave girl Nadara and Dejah Thoris, the princess of Mars, are courageous and resourceful characters.

Edgar Rice Burroughs was born in Chicago, Illinois, into a prosperous family. His father, George Tyler Burroughs, was a Civil War veteran. Burroughs attended several private schools, including the Michigan Military Academy, Orchar Lake (1892-95), where he was instructor and assistant commandant (1895-96). He served in the 7th Cavalry in the Arizona Territory (1896-97) and Illinois Reserve Militia (1918-19). After military career Burroughs was owner of a stationery store in Pocatello, Idaho (1898), and associated with American Battery Company, Chicago (1899-03). In 1900 he married Emma Centennia Hulbert (divorced in 1934); they had two sons and one daughter).

The next ten years the family lived near poverty. Burroughs was associated with Sweetser-Burroughs Mining Company in Idaho (1903-04), a railroad policeman in Salt Lake, Utah (1904), a manager of stenographic department at Sears, Roebuck and Company in Chicago (1906-08), a partner of an advertising agency (1908-09), an office manager (1909), a partner of a sales firm (1910-11). In 1910-11 Burroughs worked for Champlain Yardley Company, and from 1912 to 1913 he was manager of System Service Bureau.

Before Tarzan Burroughs led a life full of failures. The turning point came when he started to write for pulps at the age of 35 - firmly convinced that he could write as rotten stuff as published in pulp fiction magazines. His first professional sale was Under the Moons of Mars, serialized in 1912 and 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. Other popular series from Burroughs's pen were The Carson of Venus books, blending romance and comedy, the Pellucidar tales, located inside the Earth, and The Land That Time Forgot trilogy - totally some 68 titles.

Burroughs's first succesfull story was Dejah Thoris, Princess of Mars which appeared in 1912 in All-Story Magazine. A few months later in 1912 appeared his breakthrough novel TARZAN OF THE APES, followed by 24 other Tarzan adventures. ''If I had striven for long years of privation and effort to fit myself to become a writer,'' Burroughs later told, ''I might be warranted in patting myself on the back, but God knows I did not work and still do not understand how I happened to succeed.'' In 1913 Burroughs founded his own publishing house Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. Burroughs-Tarzan Enterprises and Burroughs-Tarzan Pictures were founded in 1934.

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. "As he had grown older, he found that he had grown away from his people. Their interests and his were far removed. They had not kept pace with him, nor could they understand aught of the many strange and wonderful dreams that passed through the active brain of their human king." 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.

Eventually Jane Porter becomes Tarzan's wife, and they also have a son. With the help of animals - mostly elephants and apes - Tarzan gains the unofficial status of the king of the jungle, and gains immortality through an African shaman's secret formula. In several Tarzan books the invincible hero is involved with lost races, hidden cultures, or even with an entire lost continent, but never shows any inclination of taking more than ones share of fortunes during his adventures. During his long career in the jungle, Tarzan battles against Germans, Japanese, and communits. In the first four books the hero is known variously as "Tar-Zan" ("white-skin" in the ape tongue), "John Clayton," and "Lord Bloomstoke" (later changed to "Lord Greystoke").

In addition to his four major adventure series, Burroughs wrote between the years 1912 and 1933 several other adventure novels, among them THE CAVE GIRL (1925), in which a weak aristocrat develops into a warrior, two Western novels about a white Apache, THE WAR CHIEF (1927) and APACHE DEVIL (1933), showing sympathy for Native Americans, and BEYOND THE FARTHEST STAR (1964), a science-fiction novel about the brutality of war. Burrough's science fiction novels are full of sense of adventure, taking the reader on a fantastic voyage to chart strange and unfamiliar lands like Homer did in his Odyssey. THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT (1924) is a Darwinist story set on a mysterious island near the South Pole, where dinosaurs and other primitive species have survived.

The Barsoom books were set on Mars. John Carter, the major hero, is transported to Barsoon by magical means. Eventually he wins the hand of Princess Thoris. The Pellucidar series started from AT THE EARTH'S CORE (1922), in which a group of scientist use their drilling machine to tunnel down into the hollow space at the centre of the planet. Like in Jules Verne's A Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864) they find new life forms which have survived for millions of years. '"David," said the old man, "I believe that God sent us here for just that purpose--it shall be my life work to teach them His word--to lead them into the light of His mercy while we are training their hearts and hands in the ways of culture and civilization."' (from At the Earth's Core) Also Tarzan visits this subterranean world without time in TARZAN AT THE EARTH'S CORE (1930). Burrough's created the Venus sequence, concerning the exploits of spaceman Carson Napier, relatively late in his career, in the 1930s. PIRATES OF VENUS appeared in 1934 and the last book, ESCAPE ON VENUS, in 1946. A posthumous story, 'Wizard of Venus', was published in 1964 and as the title story of THE WIZARD OF VENUS (1970).

In 1919 Burroughs purchased a large ranch in the San Fernando Valley, which he later developed into the suburb of Tarzana. To pay his expensive lifestyle and to cover his misadventures in financial investments he wrote an average of three novels a year. The first Tarzan film was produced in 1918, When the Olympic swimming champion Johnny Weissmuller took the role in the 1930's, the films became really popular.

In 1933 Burroughs was elected mayor of California Beach. He married in 1935 Florence Dearholt (they divorced in 1942). During World War II Burroughs served at the age of 66 as a war correspondent in the South Pasific. He also wrote columns ('Laugh It Off) for Honolulu Advertiser (1941-42, 1945). Burroughs died of a heart ailment on March 19, in 1950.