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I was born in Chicago.
After epidemics had closed two schools that I attended, my parents shipped
me to a cattle ranch in Idaho where I rode for my brothers who were only
recently out of college and had entered the cattle business as the best
way of utilizing their Yale degrees. Later, I was dropped from Phillips
Academy in Andover, Massachusetts; flunked examinations for West Point;
and was discharged from the regular army on account of a weak heart. Next,
my brother Henry backed me in setting up a stationery store in Pocatello,
Idaho. That didn't last long either.
When I got married
in 1900 I was making $15 a week in my father's storage battery business.
In 1903 my oldest
brother, George, gave me a position on a gold dredge he was operating in
the Stanley Basin country in Idaho. Our next stop was in Oregon, where
my brother Henry was managing a gold dredge on the Snake River. We arrived
on a freight wagon, with a collie dog and $40. Forty dollars did not seem
like much to get anywhere with, so I decided to enter a poker game at a
local saloon and run my capital up to several hundred dollars during the
night. When I returned at midnight to the room we had rented, we still
had the collie dog. Otherwise, we were not broke.
I worked in Oregon
until the company failed, and then my brother got me a job as a railroad
policeman in Salt Lake City. We were certainly poverty-stricken there,
but pride kept us from asking for help. Neither of us knew much about anything
that was practical, but we had to do everything ourselves, including the
family wash. Not wishing to see Mrs. Burroughs do work of that sort, I
volunteered to do it myself. During those months, I half soled my own shoes
and did numerous odd jobs.
Then a brilliant
idea overtook us. We had our household furniture with us, and we held an
auction which was a howling success. People paid real money for the junk
and we went back to Chicago first class. The next few months encompassed
a series of horrible jobs. I sold electric light bulbs to janitors, candy
to drug stores, and Stoddard's Lectures from door to door. I had decided
I was a total failure, when I saw an advertisement which indicated that
somebody wanted an expert accountant. Not knowing anything about its I
applied for the job and got it.
I am convinced that
what are commonly known as "the breaks," good or bad, have fully as much
to do with one's success or failure as ability. The break I got in this
instance lay in the fact that my employer knew even less about the duties
of an expert accountant than I did.
Next I determined
there was a great future in the mail-order business, and I landed a job
that brought me to the head of a large department. About this time our
daughter Joan was born.
Having a good job
and every prospect for advancement, I decided to go into business for myself,
with harrowing results. I had no capital when I started and less when I
got through. At this time the mail-order company offered me an excellent
position if I wanted to come back If I had accepted it, I would probably
have been fixed for life with a good living salary. Yet the chances are
that I would never have written a story, which proves that occasionally
it is better to do the wrong thing than the right.
When my independent
business sank without a trace, I approached as near financial nadir as
one may reach. My son, Hulbert, had just been born. I had no job, and no
money. I had to pawn Mrs, Burroughs' jewelry and my watch in order to buy
food. I loathed poverty, and I should have liked to have put my hands on
the man who said that poverty is an honorable estate. It is an indication
of inefficiency and nothing more. There is nothing honorable or fine about
it. To be poor is quite bad enough. But to be poor without hope . . . well,
the only way to understand it is to be it.
I got writer's cramp
answering blind ads, and wore out my shoes chasing after others. At last
l got placed as an agent for a lead pencil sharpener. I borrowed office
space, and while subagents were out, trying unsuccessfully to sell the
sharpener, I started to write my first story.
I had good reason
for thinking I could sell what I wrote. I had gone thoroughly through some
of the all-fiction magazines and I made up my mind that if people were
paid for writing such rot as I read I could write stories just as rotten.
Although I had never written a story, I knew absolutely that I could write
stories just as entertaining and probably a lot more so than any I chanced
to read in those magazines.
I knew nothing about
the technique of story writing, and now, after eighteen years of writing,
I still know nothing about the technique, although with the publication
of my new novel, Tarzan
and the Lost Empire, there are 31 books on my list. I had never met
an editor, or an author or a publisher. l had no idea of how to submit
a story or what I could expect in payment. Had I known anything about it
at all I would never have thought of submitting half a novel; but that
is what I did.
Thomas Newell Metcalf,
who was then editor of The All-Story magazine, published by Munsey, wrote
me that he liked the first half of a story I had sent him, and if the second
half was as good he thought he might use it. Had he not given me this encouragement,
I would never have finished the story, and my writing career would have
been at an end, since l was not writing because of any urge to write, nor
for any particular love of writing. l was writing because I had a wife
and two babies, a combination which does not work well without money.
I finished the second
half of the story, and got $400 for the manuscript, which
at that time included all serial rights. The check was the first big event
in my life. No amount of money today could possibly give me the thrill
that first $400 check gave me.
My first story was
entitled, "Dejah Thoris, Princess of Mars." Metcalf changed it to "Under
the Moons of Mars." It was later published in book form as A
Princess of Mars.
With the success
of my first story, l decided to make writing a career, though I was canny
enough not to give up my job. But the job did not pay expenses and we had
a recurrence of great poverty, sustained only by the thread of hope that
I might make a living writing fiction. I cast about for a better job and
landed one as a department manager for a business magazine. While I was
working there, I wrote Tarzan
of the Apes, evenings and holidays. I wrote it in longhand on the backs
of old letterheads and odd pieces of paper. I did not think it was a very
good story and I doubted if it would sell. But Bob Davis saw its possibilities
for magazine publication and I got a check . . . this time, l think, for
$700.
I then wrote The
Gods of Mars, which I sold immediately to the Munsey Company for All-Story.
The Return
of Tarzan, which I wrote in December, 1912, and January, 1913, was
rejected by Metcalf and purchased by Street & Smith for $1,000
in February, 1913. That same month John Coleman, our third child, was born,
and I now decided to devote myself to writing.
We were a long way
from home. My income depended solely upon the sale of magazine rights.
I had not had a book published at that time, and therefore no book royalties
were coming in. Had I failed to sell a single story during those months,
we would have been broke again. But I sold them all.
That I had to work
is evidenced by a graph that I keep on my desk showing my word output from
year to year since 1911. In 1913, it reached its peak, with 413,000 words
for the year.
I had been trying
to find a publisher who would put some of my stuff into book form, but
I met with no encouragement. Every well-known publisher in the United States
turned down Tarzan
of the Apes, including A.C. McClurg & Co., who finally issued it,
my first story in book form.
It's popularity
and its final appearance as a book was due to the vision of J. H. Tennant,
editor of the New York Evening World. He saw its possibilities as a newspaper
serial and ran it in the Evening World, and the result was that other papers
followed suit. This made the story widely known, and resulted in a demand
from readers for the story in book form, which was so insistent that A.C.
McClurg & Co. finally came to me after they rejected it and asked to
be allowed to publish it.
And that's how I became a writer!
But before Tarzan Burroughs led a life full of failures, flunking entrance
exams for West Point and trying
to be a clerk, cowboy, railroad policeman, gold miner and shop owner.
At the age of 35 Burroughs
started to write his first succesfull story 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.
Other popular series from Burroughs's pen were The Carson of Venus books,
the Pellucidar tales and
The Land That Time Forgot trilogy - totally some 68 titles.
Most of his works have been adapted to radio, comic strips and movies.
During World War II
Burroughs served at the age of 66 as a war correspondent in the South
Pasific. He died of a heart
ailment in 1950.
While criticized as repetitious and clumsy, Burroughs's stories share
the colourful imagination and superb
pacing as in the works of H.G. Wells and H. Rider Haggard.
For further reading: Golden Anniversary Bibliography of Edgar Rice Burroughs
by H.H. Heins
(1964); Edgar Rice Burroughs by Irwin Porges (1975); Edgar Rice Burroughs
by Erling B. Holtsmark
(1986)
Selected Tarzan films:
TARZAN OF THE APES, 1917, starring Elmo Lincoln
THE ROMANCE OF TARZAN, 1918
THE REVENGE OF TARZAN, 1920, starring Gene
Pollar
THE SON OF TARZAN, 1920, starring P. Dempsey
Tabler
THE ADVENTURES OF TARZAN, 1921
TARZAN AND THE GOLDEN LION, 1927
TARZAN THE MIGHTY, 1928, starring Frank Merrill
TARZAN THE TIGER, 1929
TARZAN THE APE MAN, 1932, starring Johnny
Weissmuller
TARZAN THE FEARLESS, 1933, starring Buster
Crabble
TARZAN AND HIS MATE, 1934
THE NEW ADVENTURES OF TARZAN, 1935
TARZAN ESCAPES, 1936
TARZAN'S REVENGE, 1937, starring Glenn Morris
TARZAN AND THE GREEN GODDESS, 1938, starring
Herman Brix
TARZAN FINDS A SON, 1939
TARZAN'S SECRET TREASURE. 1941
TARZAN'S NEW YORK ADVENTURE, 1942
TARZAN TRIUMPHS, 1943
TARZAN'S DESERT MYSTERY, 1943
TARZAN AND THE AMAZONS, 1945
TARZAN AND THE LEOPARD WOMAN, 1946
TARZAN AND THE HUNTERS, 1947
TARZAN AND THE MERMAID, 1948
TARZAN'S MAGIC FOUNTAIN, 1949, starring Lex
Barker
TARZAN AND THE SLAVE GIRL, 1950
TARZAN'S PERIL, 1951
TARZAN'S SAVAGE FURY, 1952
TARZAN AND SHE-DEVIL, 1953
TARZAN'S HIDDEN JUNGLE, 1955, starring Gordon
Scott
TARZAN AND THE LOST SAFARI, 1957
TARZAN'S FIGHT FOR LIFE, 1958
TARZAN AND THE TRAPPERS, 1958
TARZAN'S GREATEST ADVENTURE, 1959
TARZAN THE APE MAN, starring Dennis Miller
TARZAN THE MAGNIFICENT, 1960
TARZAN GOES INDIA, 1962, starring Jock Mahoney
TARZAN'S THREE CHALLENGES, 1963
TARZAN AND THE VALLEY OF GOLD, 1966, starring
Mike Henry
TARZAN'S DEADLY SILENCE, 1966, starring Ron
Ely
TARZAN AND THE GREAT RIVER, 1967, starring
Mike Henry
THE PERILS OF CHARITY JONES, 1967
TARZAN'S JUNGLE REBELLION, 1967
FOUR O'CLOCK ARMY, 1968
TARZAN ANDTHE JUNGLE BOY, starring Mike Henry
TARZAN AND THE RAINBOW TREASURE, 1968, starring
Steve Hawkes
THE KING OF THE JUNGLE, 1969
TRZAN AND THE BROWN PRINCE, 1970
TARZAN'S DEADLY SILENCE, 1970, starring Lawrence
Dobkin
TARZAN - MASTER OF THE JUNGLE, starring Johnny
Weissmuller, Jr.
TARZAN, THE APE MAN, 1981, starring Miles
O'Keefe
TARZAN, LORD OF THE APES, 1984, starring Christopher
Lambert
TARZAN IN MANHATTAN, starring Joe Lara
Selected Tarzan books:
TARZAN OF THE APES, 1912
THE RETURN OF TARZAN, 1913
THE BEAST OF TARZAN, 1914
THE SON OF TARZAN, 1915
TARZAN AND THE JEWELS OF OPAR, 1916
JUNGLE TALES OF TARZAN, 1919
TARZAN THE UNTAMED, 1920
TARZAN THE TERRIBLE, 1921
TARZAN AND THE GOLDEN LION, 1923
TARZAN AND THE ANT MEN, 1924
THE TARZAN TWINS, 1927
TARZAN, THE LORD OF JUNGLE, 1928
TARZAN AND THE LOST EMPIRE, 1929
TARZAN AT THE EARTH'S CORE, 1930
TARZAN THE INVINCIBLE, 1931
TARZAN TRIUMPHANT, 1932
TARZAN AND THE CITY OF GOLD, 1933
TARZAN AND THE LION MAN, 1034
TARZAN AND THE LEOPARD MEN, 1935
TARZAN'S QUEST, 1936
TARZAN AND THE TARZAN TWINS WITH JAD-BAL-JA,
THE GOLDEN LION, 1936
TARZAN AND THE FORBIDDEN CITY, 1938
TARZAN THE MAGNIFICENT, 1939
TARZAN THE LOST ADVENTURE, 1946
TARZAN AND THE FOREIGN LEGION, 1947
TARZAN AND THE TARZAN TWINS, 1963
TARZAN AND THE MADMAN, 1964
TARZAN AND THE CASTAWAYS, 1965
Pellucidar series
AT THE EARTH'S CORE, 1914
PELLUCIDAR, 1923
TANAR OF PELLUCIDAR, 1930
TARZAN AT THE EARTH'S CORE, 1937
BACK TO THE STONE AGE, 1937
LAND OF TERROR, 1944
SAVAGE PELLUCIDAR, 1963
Venus series
PIRATES OF VENUS, 1934
LOST ON VENUS, 1935
CARSON OF VENUS, 1939
ESCAPE ON VENUS, 1946
THE WIZARD OF VENUS, 1970
THE WIZARD OF VENUS AND PIRATE BLOOD, 1984
Mars series
A PRINCESS OF MARS, 1917
THE GODS OF MARS, 1918
THE WARLORD OF MARS, 1919
THUVIA, MAID OF MARS, 1920
THE CHESSMEN OF MARS, 1922
THE MASTER MIND OF MARS, 1928
A FIGHTING MAN OF MARS, 1931
SWORDS OF MARS, 1936
SYNTHETIC MEN OF MARS, 1940
LLANA OF GATHOL, 1948
JOHN CARTER OF MARS, 1964
Western Series
THE WAR CHIEF
THE APACHE DEVIL
THE BANDIT OF HELL'S BEND
THE DEPUTY SHERIFF OF COMANCHE COUNTY
GIRL FROM HOLLYWOOD
Other works:
THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT, 1924
THE ETERNAL LOVER, 1925
THE MOON MAID, 1926
THE MAD KING, 1926
THE MONSTER MEN, 1929
JUNGLE GIRL, 1932
THE MAN-EATER, 1955
TALES OF THREE PLANETS, 1964
Edgar
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