Tarzan was immediately popular, and Burroughs capitalized on it in every possible way, including a syndicated Tarzancomic strip,films, andmerchandise. Tarzan remains one of the most successful fictional characters to this day and is acultural icon. Burroughs's California ranch is now the center of theTarzana neighborhood inLos Angeles, named after the character.[3] Burroughs was an explicit supporter ofeugenics andscientific racism in both his fiction and nonfiction; Tarzan was meant to reflect these concepts.
Burroughs was born on September 1, 1875, inChicago,Illinois,[a] the fourth son of Major George Tyler Burroughs, a businessman andCivil War veteran, and his wife, Mary Evaline (Zieger) Burroughs. Edgar's middle name is from his paternal grandmother, Mary Coleman Rice Burroughs.[4][5][6]
Burroughs was of English andPennsylvania Dutch ancestry, with a family line that had been in North America since theColonial era.[7][8] Through his Rice grandmother, Burroughs was descended fromsettlerEdmund Rice, one of the EnglishPuritans who moved toMassachusetts Bay Colony in the early 17th century. He once remarked: "I can trace my ancestry back toDeacon Edmund Rice."[9] The Burroughs side of the family was also of English origin, having emigrated to Massachusetts around the same time. Many of his ancestors fought in theAmerican Revolution. Some of his ancestors settled in Virginia during the colonial period, and Burroughs often emphasized his connection with that side of his family, seeing it as romantic and warlike.[6][8]
Burroughs'sbookplate, showing Tarzan holding the planet Mars, surrounded by other characters from his stories and symbols relating to his personal interests and career.Typescript letter, with Tarzana Ranch letterhead, from Burroughs toRuthven Deane, explaining the design and significance of hisbookplate
After his discharge, Burroughs worked at a number of different jobs. During the Chicagoinfluenza epidemic of 1891, he spent half a year at his brother's ranch on theRaft River inIdaho as acowboy. He drifted afterward, then worked at his father's Chicago battery factory in 1899. He married his childhood sweetheart, Emma Hulbert (1876–1944), in January 1900.[11]
In 1903, Burroughs joined his brothers,Yale graduates George and Harry, who were by then prominent Pocatello area ranchers in southern Idaho and partners in the Sweetser-Burroughs Mining Company, where he took on managing their ill-fatedSnake Rivergold dredge, a classic bucket-line dredge. The Burroughs brothers were also the sixth cousins once removed of famed minerKate Rice who in 1914 became the first female prospector in the Canadian North. Journalist and publisherC. Allen Thorndike Rice was also his third cousin.[12]
When the new mine proved unsuccessful, the brothers secured for Burroughs a position with theOregon Short Line Railroad in Salt Lake City.[13] Burroughs resigned from the railroad in October 1904.[14]
By 1911, around age 36, after seven years of low wages as a pencil-sharpener wholesaler, Burroughs began to write fiction. By this time, Emma and he had two children, Joan (1908–1972), and Hulbert (1909–1991).[15] During this period, he had copious spare time and began readingpulp-fiction magazines. In 1929, he recalled thinking that:
"[...] if people were paid for writing rot such as I read in some of those magazines, that I could write stories just as rotten. As a matter of fact, although I had never written a story, I knew absolutely that I could write stories just as entertaining and probably a whole lot more so than any I chanced to read in those magazines."[16]
In 1913, Burroughs and Emma had their third and last child,John Coleman Burroughs (1913–1979), later known for his illustrations of his father's books.[17]
In the 1920s, Burroughs became a pilot, purchased aSecurity Airster S-1, and encouraged his family to learn to fly.[18][19]
His daughter Joan marriedTarzan film actorJames Pierce. She starred with her husband as the voice ofJane during 1932–1934 for theTarzan radio series.
Burroughs divorced Emma in 1934 and in 1935 married the former actressFlorence Gilbert Dearholt, who was the former wife of his friendAshton Dearholt, with whom he had co-founded Burroughs-Tarzan Enterprises while filmingThe New Adventures of Tarzan. Burroughs adopted the Dearholts' two children. He and Florence divorced in 1942.[20]
After the war ended, Burroughs moved back toEncino, California, where after many health problems, he died of a heart attack on March 19, 1950, having written almost 80 novels. He is buried in Tarzana, California, US.[23]
At the time of his death he was believed to have been the writer who had made the most from films, earning over US$2 million in royalties from 27 Tarzan pictures.[24]
Aiming his work at thepulps—under the name "Norman Bean" to protect his reputation—Burroughs had his first story,Under the Moons of Mars,serialized byFrank Munsey in the February to July 1912 issues ofThe All-Story.[27][28][29][b]Under the Moons of Mars inaugurated theBarsoom series, introduced John Carter, and earned Burroughs US$400 ($11,922 today). It was first published as a book byA. C. McClurg of Chicago in 1917, entitledA Princess of Mars, after three Barsoom sequels had appeared as serials and McClurg had published the first four serialTarzan novels as books.[27]
Burroughs soon took up writing full-time, and by the time the run ofUnder the Moons of Mars had finished, he had completed two novels, includingTarzan of the Apes, published from October 1912 and one of his most successful series.[citation needed]
Burroughs also wrote popular science fiction and fantasy stories involving adventurers from Earth transported to various planets (notablyBarsoom, Burroughs's fictional name forMars, andAmtor, his fictional name forVenus), lost islands (Caspak), and into the interior of theHollow Earth in hisPellucidar stories. He also wrote Westerns and historical romances. Besides those published inAll-Story, many of his stories were published inThe Argosy magazine.[citation needed]
Tarzan was a cultural sensation when introduced. Burroughs was determined to capitalize on Tarzan's popularity in every way possible. He planned to exploit Tarzan through several different media including a syndicated Tarzancomic strip, movies, and merchandise. Experts in the field advised against this course of action, stating that the different media would just end up competing against each other. Burroughs went ahead, however, and proved the experts wrong – the public wanted Tarzan in whatever fashion he was offered. Tarzan remains one of the most successful fictional characters to this day and is acultural icon.[citation needed]
In either 1915 or 1919, Burroughs purchased a large ranch north of Los Angeles, California, which he named "Tarzana". The citizens of the community that sprang up around the ranch voted to adopt that name when their community,Tarzana, California, was formed in 1927.[30] Also, the unincorporated community ofTarzan, Texas, was formally named in 1927 when theUS Postal Service accepted the name,[31] reputedly coming from the popularity of the first (silent)Tarzan of the Apes film, starringElmo Lincoln, and an early "Tarzan" comic strip.[citation needed]
In 1923, Burroughs set up his own company,Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., and began printing his own books through the 1930s.[32]
Because of the part Burroughs's science fiction played in inspiring real exploration of Mars,an impact crater on Mars was named in his honor after his death.[33] In aParis Review interview,Ray Bradbury said of Burroughs:
"Edgar Rice Burroughs never would have looked upon himself as a social mover and shaker with social obligations. But as it turns out – and I love to say it because it upsets everyone terribly – Burroughs is probably the most influential writer in the entire history of the world. By giving romance and adventure to a whole generation of boys, Burroughs caused them to go out and decide to become special."[34]
InSomething of Myself (published posthumously in 1937)Rudyard Kipling wrote: "MyJungle Books begat Zoos of [imitators]. But the genius of all the genii was one who wrote a series calledTarzan of the Apes. I read it, but regret I never saw it on the films, where it rages most successfully. He had 'jazzed' the motif of theJungle Books and, I imagine, had thoroughly enjoyed himself. He was reported to have said that he wanted to find out how bad a book he could write and 'get away with', which is a legitimate ambition."[35]
By 1963,Floyd C. Gale ofGalaxy Science Fiction wrote when discussing reprints of several Burroughs novels byAce Books, "an entire generation has grown up inexplicably Burroughs-less". He stated that most of the author's books had been out of print for years and that only the "occasional laughable Tarzan film" reminded the public of his fiction.[36] Gale reported his surprise that after two decades his books were again available, withCanaveral Press,Dover Publications, andBallantine Books also reprinting them.[37]
Few critical books have been written about Burroughs. From an academic standpoint, the most helpful are Erling Holtsmark's two books:Tarzan and Tradition[38] andEdgar Rice Burroughs;[39] Stan Galloway'sThe Teenage Tarzan: A Literary Analysis of Edgar Rice Burroughs'Jungle Tales of Tarzan;[40] and Richard Lupoff's two books:Master of Adventure: Edgar Rice Burroughs[41] andBarsoom: Edgar Rice Burroughs and the Martian Vision.[42] Galloway was identified byJames Edwin Gunn as "one of the half-dozen finest Burroughs scholars in the world";[43] Galloway called Holtsmark his "most important predecessor".[44]
Burroughs strongly supportedeugenics andscientific racism. His views held that English nobles made up a particular heritable elite amongAnglo-Saxons.Tarzan was meant to reflect this, with him being born to English nobles and then adopted by talking apes (theMangani). They express eugenicist views themselves, but Tarzan is permitted to live despite being deemed "unfit" in comparison and grows up to surpass not only them butblack Africans, whom Burroughs clearly presents as inherently inferior. In one Tarzan story, he finds an ancient civilization where eugenics has been practiced for over 2,000 years, with the result that it is free of all crime. Criminal behavior is held to be entirely hereditary, with the solution having been to kill not only criminals but also their families.Lost on Venus, a later novel, presents a similarutopia where forced sterilization is practiced and the "unfit" are killed. Burroughs explicitly supported such ideas in his unpublished nonfiction essayI See A New Race. Additionally, hisPirate Blood, which is notspeculative fiction and remained unpublished after his death, portrayed the characters as victims of their hereditary criminal traits (one a descendant of the corsairJean Lafitte, another from theJukes family).[45] These views have been compared withNazi eugenics (though noting that they were popular and common at the time), with hisLost on Venus being released the same year the Nazis took power (in 1933).[46]
As of 2025, there exists a significant special collection of Edgar Rice Burroughs' various works at theOak Park Public Library. Consisting of many rare books of his Tarzan, Mucker, Barsoom, Pellucidar, Venus, Caspak, and Moon series, the collection was developed due to Burroughs' own connection to the city, being where he wrote several of his first works, those being the Tarzan and Martian stories. Beyond the rare editions, the collection also holds a number of newspaper clippings, ephemera, correspondence between Burroughs and others, as well as various old Tarzan films. Much of the initial collection was gathered during a block party held in 1975 by a group called CHEETAH (Citizens Holding Exercises Extolling Tarzan's Anniversary Here) and compiled by Florence Moyer.[48]
Part I: The Moon Maid (1923, serialized inArgosy, May 5 – June 2, 1923)
Part II: The Moon Men (1925, serialized inArgosy, February 21 – March 14, 1925)
Part III: The Red Hawk (1925 serialized inArgosy, September 5–19, 1925)
These three texts have been published by various houses in one or two volumes. Adding to the confusion, some editions have the original (significantly longer) introduction to Part I from the first publication as a magazine serial, and others have the shorter version from the first book publication, which included all three parts under the titleThe Moon Maid.[51]
^He later lived for many years in the Chicago suburbOak Park.
^A poem by Burroughs was published on October 15, 1910, in theChicago Tribune as "by Normal Bean", and two more were published in theTribune in 1914 and 1915.[27] "Norman" was anAll-Story typesetter's presumptive correction of "Normal".[29] Burroughs used his own name for his other publications.[27]
^"Edgar Rice Burroughs".globalfirstsandfacts.com. August 16, 2017. Archived from the original on March 12, 2018. RetrievedMarch 12, 2018.
^abTaliaferro, John.Tarzan Forever: The Life of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Creator of Tarzan. pp. 15, 27.
^Burroughs, Edgar Rice (1946). "Chapter 6".Escape on Venus. Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.Archived from the original on March 17, 2025. RetrievedJanuary 20, 2025.
^Weller, Interviewed by Sam (February 4, 2019)."Ray Bradbury, The Art of Fiction No. 203".theparisreview.org. Vol. Spring 2010, no. 192.Archived from the original on February 17, 2019. RetrievedFebruary 4, 2019.
^Kipling, Rudyard (1937)."8: Working Tools".Something of Myself. London: Macmillan & Co.
