The Works of
EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS
(1875-1950)
The Novels
The Tarzan Series
TARZAN OF THE APES (1912)
THE RETURN OF TARZAN (1913)
THE BEASTS OF TARZAN (1914)
THE SON OF TARZAN (1914)
TARZAN AND THE JEWELS OF OPAR (1916)
JUNGLE TALES OF TARZAN (1917)
TARZAN THE UNTAMED (1921)
TARZAN THE TERRIBLE (1921)
The Barsoom Series
A PRINCESS OF MARS (1912)
THE GODS OF MARS (1914)
THE WARLORD OF MARS (1918)
THUVIA, MAID OF MARS (1920)
THE CHESSMEN OF MARS (1922)
THE MASTER MIND OF MARS (1928)
A FIGHTING MAN OF MARS (1931)
The Pellucidar Series
AT THE EARTH’S CORE (1914)
PELLUCIDAR (1922)
The Mucker Series
THE MUCKER (1914)
THE RETURN OF THE MUCKER (1916)
THE OAKDALE AFFAIR (1917)
The Jungle Adventures
THE ETERNAL LOVER (1913)
JUNGLE GIRL (1932)
THE LAD AND THE LION (1917)
The Caspak Series
THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT (1918)
THE PEOPLE THAT TIME FORGOT (1918)
OUT OF TIME’S ABYSS (1918)
The Moon Series
PART I: THE MOON MAID
The Western Novels
THE BANDIT OF HELL’S BEND (1924)
THE WAR CHIEF (1927)
APACHE DEVIL (1933)
The Venus Series
PIRATES OF VENUS (1932)
The Other Novels
THE MONSTER MEN (1913)
THE MAD KING (1914)
THE OUTLAW OF TORN (1914)
THE LOST CONTINENT (1916)
THE GIRL FROM FARRIS’S (1916)
H. R. H. THE RIDER (1918)
THE EFFICIENCY EXPERT (1921)
THE GIRL FROM HOLLYWOOD (1922)
THE RESURRECTION OF JIMBER-JAW (1937)
Contextual Pieces
LIST OF REVIEWS AND ARTICLES
The Delphi Classics Catalogue
© Delphi Classics 2014
Version 1
The Works of
EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS
By Delphi Classics, 2014
COPYRIGHT
Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs
First published in the United Kingdom in 2014 by Delphi Classics.
© Delphi Classics, 2014.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.
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United Kingdom
Contact: [email protected]
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The Novels
Burroughs was born in Chicago, Illinois and lived for many years at Oak Park in various houses, including this property at 700 Linden Avenue.
Burroughs as a child
The Tarzan Series
Unlike many ‘pulp’ writers, Burroughs had the good fortune to strike gold with one of his very first attempts to create a popular fictional hero. Tarzan was introduced in Burroughs’ second novel, Tarzan of the Apes (1912). Born as ‘John Clayton’, the son of English couple John and Alice Clayton, Lord and Lady Greystoke, the younger John is abandoned in the western coastal jungles of Africa after his parents’ death. Consequently, he is raised by apes, who bestow upon him the name of ‘Tarzan’ (‘white skin’ in the ape language) and he soon becomes an influential member of their community. Although the novel ends with Tarzan discovering his true identity and travelling to America, Burroughs wrote 24 sequels featuring the character’s many further exploits.
The longevity of the series arose from Burroughs’s ability to find ingenious reasons for Tarzan’s return to the jungle, even after he eventually marries and resumes his title of Lord Greystoke. On one occasion, the novels recount how Tarzan’s son, Jack, is kidnapped and forced to make his way amongst the apes in a similar way to his father, eventually becoming known by them as Korak the Killer (Son of Tarzan, 1914). In a further novel, Tarzan returns to his former home in the jungle to seek the lost gold of Atlantis after a financial crash leaves him badly off (Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar, 1916). Jungle Tales of Tarzan (1917) is ingeniously set during the events of the first novel in the series. Later novels adopt a continuing narrative. For example, Tarzan the Untamed (1921) sees the character joining the fight against Germany in Africa during the First World War, in an attempt to avenge his beloved Jane. The novel ends on a cliff-hanger, however, which is taken up in the following novel, Tarzan the Terrible (1921).
Part of Tarzan’s success was due to shrewd commercial sense on Burroughs’s part. Recognising the character’s potential, he was determined to exploit new media forms such as cinema and comic strips. This resulted in the character taking on a life of his own, with Burroughs reaping the commercial rewards via his company, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. A measure of the series’ popularity is the fact that, when Burroughs named his Californian ranch ‘Tarzana’ in honour of his creation, the local townspeople elected to adopt the name for their entire settlement, thus creating the town of Tarzana, California.
Burroughs’s determination to maintain the continuity of his character’s universe reveals a more considered approach than is often the case in the adventure genre to which the series belongs. Added to this is the intriguing way in which Burroughs uses the character not only to enact many exciting adventure set-pieces, but also to comment on the relationship between civilisation and ‘savagery’ and on the concept of an innate, noble masculinity stifled by ‘effeminate’ civilisation. The latter was a popular concept during the early twentieth century, and modern readers, whose familiarity with the character might extend only to the many film adaptations of the novels, may find themselves surprised by the sophistication with which Burroughs’s series deals with these deeper issues of identity, gender and belonging.
Cover of the first edition of ‘The Return of Tarzan’ (1913)
First edition cover of ‘Tarzan and the Castaways’ (1965) — the last Tarzan book
Tarzan is perhaps best remembered for the many films featuring the character – such as this film series, starring athlete Buster Crabbe as Burroughs’s jungle hero
Johnny Weissmu
ller, the actor perhaps most associated with the role of Tarzan, first portrayed the hero in this 1932 production.
Johnny Weissmuller as Tarzan
Burroughs’ ranch, ‘Tarzana’, named after his most famous creation and located just north of Los Angeles
TARZAN OF THE APES (1912)
First published in All-Story Magazine in 1912, before appearing as a book in 1914, this famous novel tells the story of Tarzan’s parentage, his aristocratic origins and his experience of being raised by apes, before finally discovering his true identity.
The novel portrays Tarzan as an icon of ideal masculinity. Stripped of all social trappings, Tarzan resembles a God, not only physically, but also in his mental ability (he teaches himself to read English, and is taught French during the course of the novel), his emotional and moral maturity and his dislike of impractical social customs. The novel was immediately popular and is now considered a classic of twentieth-century popular fiction and continues to spawn innumerable sequels, adaptations and imitations.
Please note: the text offered in this collection is the original 1914 book edition, containing no editorial changes to Burroughs’ text.
The magazine in which the novel first appeared in serial format
Dust jacket of the first edition
Poster for the first ever film adaptation, 1918
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. OUT TO SEA
CHAPTER II. THE SAVAGE HOME
CHAPTER III. LIFE AND DEATH
CHAPTER IV. THE APES
CHAPTER V. THE WHITE APE
CHAPTER VI. JUNGLE BATTLES
CHAPTER VII. THE LIGHT OF KNOWLEDGE
CHAPTER VIII. THE TREE-TOP HUNTER
CHAPTER IX. MAN AND MAN
CHAPTER X. THE FEAR-PHANTOM
CHAPTER XI. “KING OF THE APES”
CHAPTER XII. MAN’S REASON
CHAPTER XIII. HIS OWN KIND
CHAPTER XIV. AT THE MERCY OF THE JUNGLE
CHAPTER XV. THE FOREST GOD
CHAPTER XVI. “MOST REMARKABLE”
CHAPTER XVII. BURIALS
CHAPTER XVIII. THE JUNGLE TOLL
CHAPTER XIX. THE CALL OF THE PRIMITIVE
CHAPTER XX. HEREDITY
CHAPTER XXI. THE VILLAGE OF TORTURE
CHAPTER XXII. THE SEARCH PARTY
CHAPTER XXIII. BROTHER MEN
CHAPTER XXIV. LOST TREASURE
CHAPTER XXV. THE OUTPOST OF THE WORLD
CHAPTER XXVI. THE HEIGHT OF CIVILIZATION
CHAPTER XXVII. THE GIANT AGAIN
CHAPTER XXVIII. CONCLUSION
The 1984 big-budget, faithful adaptation of the novel, featuring Christopher Lambert as Tarzan
Walt Disney’s acclaimed 1999 animated version of the novel
TO
EMMA HULBERT BURROUGHS
CHAPTER I. OUT TO SEA
I HAD this story from one who had no business to tell it to me, or to any other. I may credit the seductive influence of an old vintage upon the narrator for the beginning of it, and my own skeptical incredulity during the days that followed for the balance of the strange tale.
When my convivial host discovered that he had told me so much, and that I was prone to doubtfulness, his foolish pride assumed the task the old vintage had commenced, and so he unearthed written evidence in the form of musty manuscript, and dry official records of the British Colonial Office to support many of the salient features of his remarkable narrative.
I do not say the story is true, for I did not witness the happenings which it portrays, but the fact that in the telling of it to you I have taken fictitious names for the principal characters quite sufficiently evidences the sincerity of my own belief that it may be true.
The yellow, mildewed pages of the diary of a man long dead, and the records of the Colonial Office dovetail perfectly with the narrative of my convivial host, and so I give you the story as I painstakingly pieced it out from these several various agencies.
If you do not find it credible you will at least be as one with me in acknowledging that it is unique, remarkable, and interesting.
From the records of the Colonial Office and from the dead man’s diary we learn that a certain young English nobleman, whom we shall call John Clayton. Lord Greystoke, was commissioned to make a peculiarly delicate investigation of conditions in a British West Coast African Colony from whose simple native inhabitants another European power was known to be recruiting soldiers for its native army, which it used solely for the forcible collection of rubber and ivory from the savage tribes along the Congo and the Aruwimi.
The natives of the British Colony complained that many of their young men were enticed away through the medium of fair and glowing promises, but that few if any ever returned to their families.
The Englishmen in Africa went even further; saying that these poor blacks were held in virtual slavery, since when their terms of enlistment expired their ignorance was imposed upon by their white officers, and they were told that they had yet several years to serve.
And so the Colonial Office appointed John Clayton to a new post in British West Africa, but his confidential instructions centered on a thorough investigation of the unfair treatment of black British subjects by the officers of a friendly European power. Why he was sent, is, however, of little moment to this story, for he never made an investigation, nor, in fact, did he ever reach his destination.
Clayton was the type of Englishman that one likes best to associate with the noblest monuments of historic achievement upon a thousand victorious battle fields — a strong, virile man — mentally, morally, and physically.
In stature he was above the average height; his eyes were gray, his features regular and strong; his carriage that of perfect, robust health influenced by his years of army training. Political ambition had caused him to seek transference from the army to the Colonial Office and so we find him, still young, intrusted with a delicate and important commission in the service of the Queen.
When he received this appointment he was both elated and appalled. The preferment seemed to him in the nature of a well merited reward for painstaking and intelligent service, and as a stepping stone to posts of greater importance and responsibility; but, on the other hand, he had been married to the Hon. Alice Rutherford for scarce a three months, and it was the thought of taking this fair young girl into the dangers and isolation of tropical Africa that dismayed and appalled him.
For her sake he would have refused the appointment; but she would not have it so. Instead she insisted that he accept, and, indeed, take her with him.
There were mothers and brothers and sisters, and aunts and cousins to express various opinions on the subject, but as to what they severally advised history is silent.
We know only that on a bright May morning in 1888, John, Lord Greystoke, and Lady Alice sailed from Dover on their way to Africa.
A month later they arrived at Freetown where they chartered a small sailing vessel, the Fuwalda, which was to bear them to their final destination.
And here John, Lord Greystoke, and Lady Alice, his wife, vanished from the eyes and from the knowledge of men.
Two months after they weighed anchor and cleared from the port of Freetown a half dozen British war vessels were scouring the south Atlantic for trace of them or their little vessel, and it was almost immediately that the wreckage was found upon the shores of St. Helena which convinced the world that the Fuwalda had gone down with all on board, and hence the search was stopped ere it had scarce begun; though hope lingered in longing hearts for many years.
The Fuwalda, a barkantine of about one hundred tons, was a vessel of the type often seen in coastwise trade in the far southern Atlantic, their crews composed of the offscourings of the sea — unhanged murderers and cutthroats of every race and every nation.
The Fuwalda was no exception to the rule. Her officers were swarthy bullies, hating and hated by their crew. The captain, while a competent seaman, was a brute in his treatment of his men. He knew,
or at least he used, but two arguments in his dealings with them — a belaying pin and a revolver — nor is it likely that the motley aggregation he signed would have understood aught else.
So it was that from the second day out from Freetown John Clayton and his young wife witnessed scenes upon the deck of the Fuwalda such as they had believed were never enacted outside the covers of printed stories of the sea.
It was on the morning of the second day that the first link was forged of what was destined to form a chain of circumstances ending in a life for one then unborn such as has probably never been paralleled in the history of man.
Two sailors were washing down the decks of the Fuwalda, the first mate was on duty, and the captain had stopped to speak with John Clayton and Lady Alice.
The men were working backwards toward the little party who were facing away from the sailors. Closer and closer they came, until one of them was directly behind the captain. In another moment he would have passed by and this strange narrative had never been recorded.
But just that instant the officer turned to leave Lord and Lady Greystoke, and, as he did so, tripped against the sailor and sprawled headlong upon the deck, overturning the water-pail so that he was drenched in its dirty contents.
For an instant the scene was ludicrous; but only for an instant. With a volley of awful oaths, his face suffused with the scarlet of mortification and rage, the captain regained his feet, and with a terrific blow felled the sailor to the deck.
Delphi Collected Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs (Illustrated) (Series Four Book 26) Page 1