Writer, born in Chicago, Illinois. Son of a wealthy businessman, he trained at the Michigan Military Academy, then served briefly in the US cavalry until he was dropped for being underage. For the next 15 years (18961911) he worked at a variety of jobs including cowboy and miner, finally deciding to try his hand at writing. He published his first story, Under the Moons of Mars (using the pen name Normal Bean), in the pulp magazine All-Story (1912), which became the start of a serialized novel (published in 1914 as Princess of Mars). In the following years he wrote several more science-fiction series, but he would remain best known for a series of novels he began in 1914 with Tarzan of the Apes, a story about an English boy raised by apes in Africa. It proved so successful that he went on to write another 27 titles in the Tarzan series, and moved to Hollywood (1919) to supervise the filming of the first of many highly popular Tarzan films. The Tarzan story also inspired a comic strip, radio and television programmes, and countless other spin-offs, all of which made Burroughs very rich. Although he lost money in early investments, he eventually made enough to buy a large ranch near Tarzana, a suburb of Los Angeles named after his creation. During World War 2 he served as a war correspondent. Producing two or three novels a year, he wrote in a rather crude style, but the sheer narrative thrust of the Tarzan story engaged millions throughout the world.
Edgar Rice Burroughs (September 1, 1875 – March 19, 1950) was an American author, best known for his creation of the jungle hero Tarzan, although he also produced works in many genres.
During this period, he had copious spare time and he began reading many pulp fiction magazines and claimed:
"...if people were paid for writing rot such as I read in some of those magazines that I could write stories just as rotten.
Aiming his work at the 'pulp' magazines then in circulation, his first story "Under the Moons of Mars" was serialized in All-Story magazine in 1912 and earned Burroughs US$400 (roughly
the equivalent of US$7600 in 2004).
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, which was
published from October 1912 and went on to become his most successful brand.
Burroughs also wrote popular science fiction/fantasy stories involving Earthly adventurers transported to various planets (notably Barsoom, Burroughs' fictional name for Mars), lost islands,
and into the interior of the hollow earth in his Pellucidar stories, as well as westerns and historical romances.
In 1923 Burroughs set up his own company, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., and began printing his own books through the 1930s.
Selected bibliography
Barsoom series
A Princess of Mars (1912) (Project Gutenberg Entry: )
The Gods of Mars (1914) (Project Gutenberg Entry:)
The Warlord of Mars (1918) (Project Gutenberg Entry:)
Thuvia,
Maid of Mars (1920) (Project Gutenberg Entry:)
The Chessmen of Mars (1922) (Project Gutenberg Entry:)
The Master Mind of Mars (1928) (Project Gutenberg Entry:)
A Fighting Man
of Mars (1931) (Project Gutenberg Entry:)
Swords of Mars (1936) (Project Gutenberg Entry:)
Synthetic Men of Mars (1940) (Project Gutenberg Entry:)
Llana of Gathol (1948)
(Project Gutenberg Entry:)
John Carter of Mars (1964) "John Carter and the Giant of Mars" (1940) (Project Gutenberg Entry:) "Skeleton Men of Jupiter" (1942 (Project Gutenberg Entry:)
Tarzan series
Tarzan of the Apes (1912) (Project Gutenberg Entry:)
The Return of Tarzan (1913) (Project Gutenberg Entry:)
The Beasts of Tarzan (1914) (Project Gutenberg Entry:)
The
Son of Tarzan (1914) (Project Gutenberg Entry:)
Tarzan and the Jewels Of Opar (1916) (Project Gutenberg Entry:)
Jungle Tales of Tarzan (1916, 1917) (Project Gutenberg Entry:)
Tarzan the Untamed (1919, 1921) (Project Gutenberg Entry:)
Tarzan the Terrible (1921) (Project Gutenberg Entry:)
Tarzan and the Golden Lion (1922, 1923)
Tarzan and the Ant
Men (1924)
Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle (1927, 1928)
Tarzan and the Lost Empire (1928)
Tarzan at the Earth's Core (1929)
Tarzan the Invincible (1930. 1931)
Tarzan
Triumphant (1931)
Tarzan and the City of Gold (1932)
Tarzan and the Lion Man (1933, 1934)
Tarzan and the Leopard Men (1935)
Tarzan's Quest (1935, 1936)
Tarzan
and the Forbidden City (1938)
Tarzan the Magnificent (1936, 1937)
Tarzan and the Foreign Legion (1947)
Tarzan and the Madman (1964)
Tarzan and the Castaways (1940,
1941, 1965) for younger readers
Tarzan and the Tarzan Twins (1927, 1936, 1963)
Pellucidar series
At the Earth's Core (1914) (Project Gutenberg Entry: )
Pellucidar (1923) (Project Gutenberg Entry: )
Tanar of Pellucidar (1928)
Tarzan at the Earth's Core (1929)
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)
Caspak series
The Land That Time Forgot (1918) (Project Gutenberg Entry: ) see also Lost World literary genre.
The People That Time Forgot (1918) (Project Gutenberg Entry: ) [mislabeled as
"People Out of Time"]
Out of Time’s Abyss (1918) (Project Gutenberg Entry: )
Moon series
The Moon Maid (1926)
The Moon Men (1926)
Other science fiction
Beyond the Farthest Star (1941)
The Lost Continent (1916) (aka
Beyond Thirty) (Project Gutenberg Entry: )
The Monster Men (1929) (Project Gutenberg Entry: )
Jungle adventure novels
The Cave Girl (1925)
The Eternal Savage (1925) (aka
The Eternal Lover)
The Lad and the Lion (1938) The Land of Hidden Men (1932) (aka
Jungle Girl)
The Man Eater (1935)
Western novels
Apache Devil (1933)
The Bandit of Hell's Bend (1926)
The Deputy Sheriff of Comanche County (1940)
The War Chief (1927)
Historical novels
I am a Barbarian (1967)
The Outlaw of Torn (1927) (Project Gutenberg Entry: )
Other works
The Efficiency Expert (1921) (Project Gutenberg Entry: )
Forgotten Tales of Love and Murder (2001)
The Girl from Farris's (1916)
The Girl from Hollywood (1923)
The Mad King (1926) (Project Gutenberg Entry: )
Marcia of the Doorstep (1999)
Minidoka: 937th Earl of One Mile Series M (1998)
The Mucker (1921) (Project Gutenberg
Entry: )
The Oakdale Affair (1917) (Project Gutenberg Entry: )
Pirate Blood (1970)
The Return of the Mucker (1921)
The Rider (1937)
You Lucky Girl! (1999)
In Popular Culture
In the video game
Jurassic Park: Trespasser there is a statue of E. Burroughs, possibly as a reference to his novel
The Land That Time Forgot. In chapter 16 of Stephen King's
novel
Desperation the line "
The Farting Buzzards of Desperation.
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