 Dust-jacket illustration ofTarzan and the Golden Lion | |
| Author | Edgar Rice Burroughs |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | J. Allen St. John |
| Language | English |
| Series | Tarzan series |
| Genre | Adventure |
| Publisher | A. C. McClurg |
Publication date | 1922-1923 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (hardback) |
| Pages | 333 |
| Preceded by | Tarzan the Terrible |
| Followed by | Tarzan and the Ant Men |
| Text | Tarzan and the Golden Lion atWikisource |
Tarzan and the Golden Lion is an adventure novel by American writerEdgar Rice Burroughs, the ninth in hisseries of twenty-four books about the title characterTarzan. The story was first published as a seven part serial inArgosy All-Story Weekly beginning in December 1922; and then as a complete novel by A.C. McClurg & Co. on March 24,1923.[1]
The story picks up with the Clayton family: Tarzan,Jane Porter and their sonKorak, returning from their adventures in the previous novel (#8). Along the way, they find an orphanedlion cub, which Tarzan takes home and trains.
Flora Hawkes, a previous housemaid of the Claytons, has overheard of Tarzan's discovery of the treasure chamber in the lost city ofOpar (fromThe Return of Tarzan andTarzan and the Jewels of Opar) and has managed to copy his map to it. She concocts a plan to lead an expedition to collect the gold. As a contingency to discourage any local denizens from questioning them, she seeks out and finds a Tarzan look-alike named Esteban Miranda to accompany them.
Two years pass since the Clayton family adopted their lion cub, making the year around 1935 and Tarzan is about 47 years old. His Greystoke estate has become so financially depleted due to his support of the Allies war efforts, and he concludes it was time to return to Opar for another withdrawal.
Tarzan encounters Hawkes' party, where he is drugged and ends up in the hands of the Oparians. Queen La, who has come into disfavor with the high priest, feels she has nothing to lose by escaping with Tarzan through the only unguarded route — a path to the legendary valley of diamonds, from which no one has ever returned. There, Tarzan finds a race of humans who are little better than animals in intelligence, being enslaved by a race of intelligent gorillas. With the help of his golden lionJad-bal-ja, Tarzan uses the natives to restoreLa to power. Before leaving, he accepts a bag of diamonds as a reward.
Meanwhile, Esteban Miranda convinces Tarzan's Waziri party to take the gold from Hawkes' party while most of them are out hunting. He then buries the gold so he can retain it later. The real Tarzan eventually confronts the imposter, who still manages to pilfer Tarzan's bag of diamonds. Miranda is then chased by Jad-bal-ja, but he escapes into a river, before finding himself later captured and permanently imprisoned by a local tribe. Tarzan loses the diamonds, but he's still able to attain the gold and return with it.
The novel was made into amotion picture in 1927.
Tarzan and the Golden Lion has been adapted intocomic form byGold Key Comics inTarzan nos. 172-173, dated April–May 1969, with a script byGaylord DuBois and art byRuss Manning.
The book was the basis for an episode ofFilmation's animatedTarzan, Lord of the Jungle series. Here, the intelligent gorillas are depicted as a race of gorilla men called the "Bolmangani", where they imprison a race of monkey people and many other animals, but they fight along Tarzan.
Tarzan and the Golden Lion public domain audiobook atLibriVox| Preceded by | Tarzan series Tarzan and the Golden Lion | Succeeded by |