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Edgar Rice Burroughs
Born	(1875-09-01)September 1, 1875 Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Died	March 19, 1950(1950-03-19) (aged 74) Encino, California, U.S.
Resting place	Tarzana, California, U.S.
Occupation	Novelist
Period	1911–1950
Genre	Adventure novel, fantasy, lost world, sword and planet, planetary romance, soft science fiction, Western
Notable works	Tarzan series Barsoom series
Signature

Edgar Rice Burroughs (September 1, 1875 – March 19, 1950) was an American fiction writer best known for his celebrated and prolific output in the adventure and science-fiction genres. Among the most notable of his creations are the jungle hero Tarzan, the heroic Mars adventurer John Carter and the fictional landmass within Earth known as Pellucidar. Burroughs' California ranch is now the center of the Tarzana neighborhood in Los Angeles.

Biography

Early life and family

Burroughs was born on September 1, 1875, in Chicago, Illinois (he later lived for many years in the suburb of Oak Park), the fourth son of Major George Tyler Burroughs (1833–1913), a businessman and Civil War veteran, and his wife, Mary Evaline (Zieger) Burroughs (1840–1920). His middle name is from his paternal grandmother, Mary Coleman Rice Burroughs (1802-1889).^[1][2][3] He was of almost entirely English ancestry, with a family line that had been in North America since the Colonial era.^[4]

Through his Rice grandmother, Burroughs was descended from settler Edmund Rice, one of the English Puritans who moved to Massachusetts Bay Colony in the early 17th Century. He once remarked, "I can trace my ancestry back to Deacon Edmund Rice." The Burroughs side of the family was also of English origin and also emigrated to Massachusetts around the same time. Many of his ancestors fought in the American 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,^[5][3] and, in fact, could have counted among his close cousins no less than seven signers of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, including his third cousin, four times removed, 2nd President of the United States John Adams.^[6]

Burroughs was educated at a number of local schools. He then attended Phillips Academy, in Andover, Massachusetts, and then the Michigan Military Academy. Graduating in 1895, and failing the entrance exam for the United States Military Academy at West Point, he became an enlisted soldier with the 7th U.S. Cavalry in Fort Grant, Arizona Territory. After being diagnosed with a heart problem and thus ineligible to serve, he was discharged in 1897.^[7]

Burroughs's bookplate, 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 to Ruthven Deane, explaining the design and significance of his bookplate

After his discharge Burroughs worked a number of different jobs. During the Chicago influenza epidemic of 1891, he spent half a year at his brother's ranch on the Raft River in Idaho, as a cowboy, drifted somewhat afterward, then worked at his father's Chicago battery factory in 1899, marrying his childhood sweetheart, Emma Hulbert (1876–1944), in January 1900.

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-fated Snake River gold dredge, a classic bucket-line dredge. The Burroughs brothers were also the sixth cousins, once removed, of famed miner Kate Rice, a brilliant and statuesque Maths professor who, in 1914, became the first female prospector in the Canadian North. Journalist and publisher C. Allen Thorndike Rice was also his third cousin.^[8]

When the new mine proved unsuccessful, the brothers secured for Burroughs a position with the Oregon Short Line Railroad in Salt Lake City.^[9] Burroughs resigned from the railroad in October 1904.^[10]

Author

By 1911, 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).^[11] During this period, he had copious spare time and began reading pulp-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.^[12]

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.^{[citation needed]}

In the 1920s, Burroughs became a pilot, purchased a Security Airster S-1, and encouraged his family to learn to fly.^[13][14]

Daughter Joan married Tarzan film actor, James Pierce, starring with her husband, as the voice of Jane, during 1932-34 for the Tarzan radio series. The pair were wed for more than forty years, until her death, in 1972.

Burroughs divorced Emma in 1934 and, in 1935, married the former actress Florence Gilbert Dearholt, who was the former wife of his friend (who was then remarrying himself), Ashton Dearholt, with whom he had co-founded Burroughs-Tarzan Enterprises while filming The New Adventures of Tarzan. Burroughs adopted the Dearholts' two children. He and Florence divorced in 1942.^[15]

Burroughs was in his late 60s and was in Honolulu at the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.^[16] Despite his age, he applied for and received permission to become a war correspondent, becoming one of the oldest U.S. war correspondents during World War II. This period of his life is mentioned in William Brinkley's bestselling novel Don't Go Near the Water.

Death

After the war ended, Burroughs moved back to Encino, California, where after many health problems, he died of a heart attack on March 19, 1950, having written almost 80 novels. He is buried at Tarzana, California, US.^[17]

When he died, he was believed to have been the writer who had made the most from films, earning over $2 million in royalties from 27 Tarzan pictures.^[18]

The Science Fiction Hall of Fame inducted Burroughs in 2003.^[19][20]

Literary career

Aiming his work at the pulps, Burroughs had his first story, Under the Moons of Mars, serialized by Frank Munsey in the February to July 1912 issues of The All-Story^[21][22][23] – under the name "Norman Bean" to protect his reputation.^[23][a]Under the Moons of Mars inaugurated the Barsoom series and earned Burroughs US$400 ($10,385 today). It was first published as a book by A. C. McClurg of Chicago in 1917, entitled A Princess of Mars, after three Barsoom sequels had appeared as serials and McClurg had published the first four serial Tarzan novels as books.^[21]

Burroughs soon took up writing full-time, and by the time the run of Under the Moons of Mars had finished, he had completed two novels, including Tarzan of the Apes, published from October 1912 and one of his most successful series.

Burroughs also wrote popular science fiction and fantasy stories involving adventurers from Earth transported to various planets (notably Barsoom, Burroughs's fictional name for Mars, and Amtor, his fictional name for Venus), lost islands, and into the interior of the hollow earth in his Pellucidar stories. He also wrote Westerns and historical romances. Besides those published in All-Story, many of his stories were published in The Argosy magazine.

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 Tarzan comic 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 a cultural icon.

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.^[24] Also, the unincorporated community of Tarzan, Texas, was formally named in 1927 when the US Postal Service accepted the name,^[25] reputedly coming from the popularity of the first (silent) Tarzan of the Apes film, starring Elmo Lincoln, and an early "Tarzan" comic strip.

In 1923, Burroughs set up his own company, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., and began printing his own books through the 1930s.

Reception and criticism

Burroughs so influenced real exploration of Mars that an impact crater was named after him.^[26] In a Paris Review interview, Ray Bradbury said of Burroughs that "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."^[27] Bradbury continued that "By giving romance and adventure to a whole generation of boys, Burroughs caused them to go out and decide to become special."

In Something of Myself (published posthumously in 1937) Rudyard Kipling wrote: “My Jungle Books begat Zoos of them. But the genius of all the genii was one who wrote a series called Tarzan 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 the Jungle 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.” (Ch. 8, “Working Tools”).

By 1963, Floyd C. Gale of Galaxy Science Fiction wrote when discussing reprints of several Burroughs novels by Ace 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 public of his fiction.^[28] Gale reported his surprise that after two decades his books were again available, with Canaveral Press, Dover Publications, and Ballantine Books also reprinting them.^[29]

Few critical books have arisen concerning Burroughs. From an academic standpoint, the most helpful are Erling Holtsmark's two books: Tarzan and Tradition^[30] and Edgar Rice Burroughs;^[31] Stan Galloway's The Teenage Tarzan: A Literary Analysis of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Jungle Tales of Tarzan;^[32] and Richard Lupoff's two books: Master of Adventure: Edgar Rice Burroughs^[33] and Barsoom: Edgar Rice Burroughs and the Martian Vision.^[34] Galloway was identified by James Gunn as "one of the half-dozen finest Burroughs scholars in the world";^[35] Galloway called Holtsmark his "most important predecessor."^[36]

Selected works

Barsoom series

• 
  A Princess of Mars (1912)


• 
  The Gods of Mars (1913)


• 
  The Warlord of Mars (1914)


• 
  Thuvia, Maid of Mars (1916)


• 
  The Chessmen of Mars (1922)


• 
  The Master Mind of Mars (1927)


• 
  A Fighting Man of Mars (1930)


• 
  Swords of Mars (1934)


• 
  Synthetic Men of Mars (1939)


• 
  Llana of Gathol (1941)


• 
  John Carter of Mars (1964, stories from 1940-1943)

Tarzan series

• 
  Tarzan of the Apes (1912)


• 
  The Return of Tarzan (1913)


• 
  The Beasts of Tarzan (1914)


• 
  The Son of Tarzan (1915)


• 
  Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar (1916)


• 
  Jungle Tales of Tarzan (stories 1916-1917)


• 
  Tarzan the Untamed (1919)


• 
  Tarzan the Terrible (1921)


• 
  Tarzan and the Golden Lion (1922)


• 
  Tarzan and the Ant Men (1924)


• 
  Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle (1927)


• 
  Tarzan and the Lost Empire (1928)


• 
  Tarzan at the Earth's Core (1929)


• 
  Tarzan the Invincible (1930)


• 
  Tarzan Triumphant (1931)


• 
  Tarzan and the City of Gold (1932)


• 
  Tarzan and the Lion Man (1933)


• 
  Tarzan and the Leopard Men (1932)


• 
  Tarzan's Quest (1935)


• 
  Tarzan the Magnificent (1936)


• 
  Tarzan and the Forbidden City (1938)


• 
  Tarzan and the Foreign Legion (1947, written in 1944)


• 
  Tarzan and the Tarzan Twins (1963, collects 1927 and 1936 children's books)


• 
  Tarzan and the Madman (1964, written in 1940)


• 
  Tarzan and the Castaways (1965, stories from 1940-1941)


• 
  Tarzan: the Lost Adventure (1995, rewritten version of 1946 fragment) (completed by Joe R. Lansdale)

Pellucidar series

• 
  At the Earth's Core (1914)


• 
  Pellucidar (1915)


• 
  Tanar of Pellucidar (1929)


• 
  Tarzan at the Earth's Core (1929)


• 
  Back to the Stone Age (1937)


• 
  Land of Terror (1944, written in 1939)


• 
  Savage Pellucidar (1963, stories from 1942)

Venus series

• 
  Pirates of Venus (1932)


• 
  Lost on Venus (1933)


• 
  Carson of Venus (1938)


• 
  Escape on Venus (1946, stories from 1941-1942)


• 
  The Wizard of Venus (1970, written in 1941)

Caspak series

• 
  The Land That Time Forgot (1918)


• 
  The People That Time Forgot (1918)


• 
  Out of Time’s Abyss (1918)

Moon series

• 
  The Moon Maid (1923, revised 1925; The Moon Men)
  
  
  
  • Part I: The Moon Maid
  
  
  • Part II: The Moon Men
  
  
  • Part III: The Red Hawk
  
  
  
  

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 title The Moon Maid.^[37]

Mucker series

• 
  The Mucker (1914)


• 
  The Return of the Mucker (1916)


• 
  The Oakdale Affair (1918)

Other science fiction

• 
  The Monster Men (1913)


• 
  The Lost Continent (1916; a.k.a. Beyond Thirty)


• 
  The Resurrection of Jimber-Jaw (1937)


• 
  Beyond the Farthest Star (1942)

Jungle adventure novels

• 
  The Cave Girl (1913, revised 1917)


• 
  The Eternal Lover (1914, revised 1915; a.k.a. The Eternal Savage)


• 
  The Man-Eater (1915)


• The Lad and the Lion (1917)


• 
  Jungle Girl (1931; a.k.a. Land of the Hidden Men)

Western novels

• 
  The Bandit of Hell's Bend (1924)


• 
  The War Chief (1927)


• 
  Apache Devil (1933)


• 
  The Deputy Sheriff of Comanche County (1940)

Historical novels

• 
  The Outlaw of Torn (1914)


• 
  I am a Barbarian (1967, written in 1941)

Other works

• 
  Minidoka: 937th Earl of One Mile Series M (1998, written in 1903)


• 
  The Mad King (1914, revised 1915)


• 
  The Girl from Farris's (1916)


• 
  The Rider (1918)


• 
  The Efficiency Expert (1921)


• 
  The Girl from Hollywood (1922)


• 
  Marcia of the Doorstep (1924)


• 
  You Lucky Girl! (1927)


• 
  Pirate Blood (1970, written in 1932)


• 
  Forgotten Tales of Love and Murder (2001, stories from 1910-1944)


• 
  Brother Men (2005) (Nonfiction)

Books on Edgar Rice Burroughs

• 
  Master of Adventure: The Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs by Richard A. Lupoff
  


• 
  Tarzan Forever: The Life of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Creator of Tarzan by John Taliaferro
  


• 
  Golden Anniversary Bibliography of Edgar Rice Burroughs by the Rev. Henry Hardy Heins
  


• 
  Tarzan Alive by Philip Jose Farmer
  


• 
  Burroughs's Science Fiction by Robert R. Kudlay and Joan Leiby


• 
  Tarzan and Tradition and Edgar Rice Burroughs by Erling B. Holtsmark


• 
  Edgar Rice Burroughs by Irwin Porges


• 
  Edgar Rice Burroughs by Robert B. Zeuschner


• 
  The Burroughs Cyclopædia ed. by Clark A. Brady


• 
  A Guide to Barsoom by John Flint Roy


• 
  Tarzan: the Centennial Celebration by Scott Tracy Griffin
  


• 
  Edgar Rice Burroughs: The Descriptive Bibliography of the Grosset & Dunlap Reprints by B. J. Lukes

See also

• Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.


• Mars in fiction


• Otis Adelbert Kline


• Sword and planet

Notes

References

Bibliography

• 
  Holtsmark, Erling B. (1986), Edgar Rice Burroughs, Boston: Twain, ISBN 0-8057-7459-9
  


• 
  Spence, Clark C. (2015), History of Gold Dredging in Idaho, Boulder: University Press of Colorado, ISBN 978-1-60732-474-4
  


• 
  


• Wikilivres has original media or text related to this article: Edgar Rice Burroughs (in the public domain in New Zealand)


• 
  Works by Edgar Rice Burroughs at Project Gutenberg
  


• 
  Works by Edgar Rice Burroughs at Faded Page (Canada)


• 
  Works by Edgar Rice Burroughs at Project Gutenberg Australia
  


• 
  Works by or about Edgar Rice Burroughs at Internet Archive
  


• 
  Works by Edgar Rice Burroughs at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
  


• 
  Bibliography on SciFan


• 
  Edgar Rice Burroughs at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
  


• Works by Edgar Rice Burroughs


• 
  ER Burroughs 1st UK editions list with pictures of the books, Google.

External links

• 
  Official website (Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.)


• 
  "Edgar Rice Burroughs biography". Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.
  


• 
  Mars books (podcasts) at The Fantastic Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs^{[dead link]}
  


• ERBzine.com


• 
  Edgar Rice Burroughs at Library of Congress Authorities, with 347 catalog records