Edgar Rice Burroughs
"Pine no more my
lassie |
[This
biographical profile is based largely on the book Tarzan Forever: The Life
of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Creator of Tarzan by John Taliaferro, 1999,
Scribners.]
With
his fondness for fantasy, his high regard for real estate, and his confidence
that the movies would make him wealthy, Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950) was
the perfect immigrant to early 20th century Los Angeles.
First
and foremost, Edgar Rice Burroughs was the creator of Tarzan. He also created
other pulp fiction heroes, but none with the staying power of his jungle
superman. In his time, which covered the second, third and fourth decades of
the last century, only Western writer Zane Grey came close to equaling
Burroughs in popularity. Millions read his stories in magazines. Additional
millions bought his books, 74 in all. Tarzan’s adventures could be
tracked in Sunday comic strips, radio serials, and, of course, the movies.
And
then there was Edgar Rice Burroughs the real estate developer – most
notably, the founder of Tarzana, the
This
unusual combination of popular writer and property developer makes Burroughs a
unique figure in
Born
in Chicago, the son of Civil War veteran Maj. George T. Burroughs, the future
writer was an undistinguished student and failed the entrance exam to the U.S.
Military Academy at
As a
young man, he liked drawing caricatures and writing verse, but never imagined
himself a writer. His perspective changed in 1911 at the age of 36. After
reading a number of all-fiction magazines, he thought: "If other people
got money for writing such stuff, I might too, for I was sure I could write stories
just as rotten as theirs." With nothing to
lose, he began writing a romantic fantasy called "A Princess of
Mars," in which a soldier falls into a trance in Arizona and wakes up on
Mars where he rescues the beautiful princess Dejah Thoris and defeats evil
Martians with names like Tal Hajus, jeddak of Thark.
Much
to his amazement, he sold the story for $400 under the unlikely pseudonym of
Normal Bean. A second story was rejected, and then came "Tarzan of the
Apes" for which Burroughs received $700 (less than a penny a word) and a
letter from his editor praising it as "the most exciting story we have
seen in a blue moon, and about as original as they make ‘em."
"Tarzan" ran in full in the October 1912 issue of The All-Story magazine
(this time under the Burroughs name) and was an immediate success.
In his
biography of Burroughs, Tarzan Forever, John Taliaferro writes:
"Where had the idea for Tarzan come from? Burroughs never did come up with
a pat explanation, perhaps because there was none. ‘I’ve been asked
that hundreds of times and ought to have a good answer thought up by now, but
haven’t,’ he told the Los Angeles Times in 1929."
(Burroughs, incidentally, never visited
More
Tarzan stories followed, as did stories with other heroes fighting the good
fight in settings ranging from Mars and Venus to the Earth’s inner crust
. In time, the stories became books which generated royalties and a new life
for Burroughs.
"In
a typical Burroughs tale, the hero is a stranger in a strange land –
Tarzan in the jungle, John Carter on Mars, David Innes in the Inner World,
Carson Napier on Venus," writes Taliaferro. "He is a warrior by both
breeding and training. Repeatedly he is chased, outnumbered by savage hordes,
and thrown into a ‘Stygian’ cell of ‘Cimmerian’ darkness.
‘Where there is life there is hope,’ exclaims John Carter when the
going gets roughest, an optimism shared by all Burroughs protagonists. By
application of brawn, brains, and valor, he eventually prevails over his
adversaries and either makes his way home or else finds a new and better
home." Taliaferro credits Burroughs with introducing boy-meets-girl
romance into science fiction.
Throughout
his life, Burroughs considered himself more of a businessman than an artist.
"Once a story was on paper," writes Taliaferro, "his fundamental
strategy was always to get the highest possible fee from the best possible
magazine, and then recycle – resell – the plots and characters in
every possible way, like a tailor using every scrap from a bolt of cloth."
Burroughs eventually formed a company, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., to publish
his books and manage his business interests.
The
first Tarzan movie, starring Elmo Lincoln, appeared in 1918 and was a huge
success. (Many of the scenes were shot in
Burroughs
hoped that the ranch would become self-sufficient, but his expensive tastes,
combined with a large mortgage and upkeep costs, took their toll. In 1922, one
hundred acres closest to
More
changes were in the offing. In 1924, Burroughs and a group of investors
formalized an agreement to develop 120 acres of Tarzana ranch land into the El
Caballero Country Club. The 20-room hacienda where Burroughs and his family
lived became the clubhouse. A few months later, Burroughs moved his family into
a rented home in downtown
In
1928, writes Taliaferro, "the 400 residents of the Tarzana subdivision and
the adjacent subdivision of
Burroughs
characters had universal appeal, and his books were printed in 30 languages.
During the ‘20s, he was the most widely read English-language writer in
Even
when he tired of mining the same old material, Burroughs went on writing Tarzan
stories. "I think plots are like eggs," he once wrote. "A hen is
born with potentialities of just so many eggs, and after she has layed [sic]
the last one she can sit on her nest and strain and grunt and never squeeze out
another. Perhaps a writer is born with just so many plots. I have been
straining and grunting and rearranging my feathers for a long time, but I
can’t squeeze out a single new plot, and the old ones have commenced to
smell."
In the
end, however, it was
Burroughs
was twice married and divorced. For a time he lived in a rented quarters in
His
last residence was a small bungalow on a half-acre lot north of
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Additional
reading: Edgar Rice Burroughs: The Man Who Created Tarzan by Irwin
Porges (1975), Brigham Young University Press.
There
is also an international Edgar Rice Burroughs fan organization called the Burroughs
Bibliophiles which operates a Website and issues two
publications: a quarterly magazine, The Burroughs Bulletin, and a
monthly newsletter, The Gridley Wave. The Bibliophiles also hold an
annual convention, called a "Dum-Dum."
An
Edgar Rice Burroughs memorial collection is housed at the
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Contributed by Albert Greenstein, 2000