Edgar Rice Burroughs - Venus 2 - Lost on Venus.pdf - Edgar Rice Burroughs - margozap

Volume Two, Venus Series

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Edgar Rice Burroughs

American novelist, creator of the world famous character of Tarzan, one of the

indispensable icons of popular culture. Burroughs also published science fiction and

crime novels, some 26 novels dealt with the Apeman. Critics have considered

Burroughs's fiction often crudely written and chauvinist. His books, however, are still

widely read and usually more interesting than the films. It is true that Burroughs often

portrayed Africans, Arabs or Asians as evil or comic, but the stories also contain several

elements that have kept them 'politically correct': Waziri warriors are brave, and his cave

girl Nadara and Dejah Thoris, the princess of Mars, are courageous and resourceful

characters.

Edgar Rice Burroughs was born in Chicago, Illinois, into a prosperous family. His father,

George Tyler Burroughs, was a Civil War veteran. Burroughs attended several private

schools, including the Michigan Military Academy, Orchar Lake (1892-95), where he

was instructor and assistant commandant (1895-96). He served in the 7th Cavalry in the

Arizona Territory (1896-97) and Illinois Reserve Militia (1918-19). After military career

Burroughs was owner of a stationery store in Pocatello, Idaho (1898), and associated with

American Battery Company, Chicago (1899-03). In 1900 he married Emma Centennia

Hulbert (divorced in 1934); they had two sons and one daughter).

The next ten years the family lived near poverty. Burroughs was associated with

Sweetser-Burroughs Mining Company in Idaho (1903-04), a railroad policeman in Salt

Lake, Utah (1904), a manager of stenographic department at Sears, Roebuck and

Company in Chicago (1906-08), a partner of an advertising agency (1908-09), an office

manager (1909), a partner of a sales firm (1910-11). In 1910-11 Burroughs worked for

Champlain Yardley Company, and from 1912 to 1913 he was manager of System Service

Bureau.

Before Tarzan Burroughs led a life full of failures. The turning point came when he

started to write for pulps at the age of 35 - firmly convinced that he could write as rotten

stuff as published in pulp fiction magazines. His first professional sale was Under the

Moons of Mars, serialized in 1912 and introducing the popular invincible hero John

Carter, who is transported to Mars apparently by astral projection, following a battle with

Apaches in Arizona. The 'Martian' series eventually reached eleven books. Other popular

series from Burroughs's pen were The Carson of Venus books, blending romance and

comedy, the Pellucidar tales, located inside the Earth, and The Land That Time Forgot

trilogy - totally some 68 titles.

Burroughs's first succesfull story was 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. ''If I had

striven for long years of privation and effort to fit myself to become a writer,'' Burroughs

later told, ''I might be warranted in patting myself on the back, but God knows I did not

work and still do not understand how I happened to succeed.'' In 1913 Burroughs founded

his own publishing house Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. Burroughs-Tarzan Enterprises and

Burroughs-Tarzan Pictures were founded in 1934.

The world famous protagonist in Tarzan books is John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, whose

aristocratic parents, John Clayton and his wife, Lady Alice, are abandoned on the west

coast of Africa by mutinous sailors. Lady Alice dies insane and his father is killed by a

great ape named Kerchak. Tarzan raised by an ape, Kala, and grows into a leader of the

hairy tribe due to his intelligence and fighting skills. In the jungle Tarzan learns to read

when he founds a book from the remnants of his parents hut. "As he had grown older, he

found that he had grown away from his people. Their interests and his were far removed.

They had not kept pace with him, nor could they understand aught of the many strange

and wonderful dreams that passed through the active brain of their human king." Another

party of whites is marooned at the same west coast - the Porters from Baltimore and

William Clayton, the present Lord Greystoke. During the tale, Tarzan finds love,

becomes a hero, and finds his aristocratic roots. Tarzan falls in love with Jane Porter, but

in the Tarzan of the Apes, Jane rejects his offer of marriage and accepts the proposal of

William Greystoke.

Eventually Jane Porter becomes Tarzan's wife, and they also have a son. With the help of

animals - mostly elephants and apes - Tarzan gains the unofficial status of the king of the

jungle, and gains immortality through an African shaman's secret formula. In several

Tarzan books the invincible hero is involved with lost races, hidden cultures, or even with

an entire lost continent, but never shows any inclination of taking more than ones share of

fortunes during his adventures. During his long career in the jungle, Tarzan battles

against Germans, Japanese, and communits. In the first four books the hero is known

variously as "Tar-Zan" ("white-skin" in the ape tongue), "John Clayton," and "Lord

Bloomstoke" (later changed to "Lord Greystoke").

In addition to his four major adventure series, Burroughs wrote between the years 1912

and 1933 several other adventure novels, among them THE CAVE GIRL (1925), in

which a weak aristocrat develops into a warrior, two Western novels about a white

Apache, THE WAR CHIEF (1927) and APACHE DEVIL (1933), showing sympathy for

Native Americans, and BEYOND THE FARTHEST STAR (1964), a science-fiction

novel about the brutality of war. Burrough's science fiction novels are full of sense of

adventure, taking the reader on a fantastic voyage to chart strange and unfamiliar lands

like Homer did in his Odyssey. THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT (1924) is a

Darwinist story set on a mysterious island near the South Pole, where dinosaurs and other

primitive species have survived.

The Barsoom books were set on Mars. John Carter, the major hero, is transported to

Barsoon by magical means. Eventually he wins the hand of Princess Thoris. The

Pellucidar series started from AT THE EARTH'S CORE (1922), in which a group of

scientist use their drilling machine to tunnel down into the hollow space at the centre of

the planet. Like in Jules Verne's A Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864) they find

new life forms which have survived for millions of years. '"David," said the old man, "I

believe that God sent us here for just that purpose--it shall be my life work to teach them

His word--to lead them into the light of His mercy while we are training their hearts and

hands in the ways of culture and civilization."' (from At the Earth's Core) Also Tarzan

visits this subterranean world without time in TARZAN AT THE EARTH'S CORE

(1930). Burrough's created the Venus sequence, concerning the exploits of spaceman

Carson Napier, relatively late in his career, in the 1930s. PIRATES OF VENUS appeared

in 1934 and the last book, ESCAPE ON VENUS, in 1946. A posthumous story, 'Wizard

of Venus', was published in 1964 and as the title story of THE WIZARD OF VENUS

(1970).

In 1919 Burroughs purchased a large ranch in the San Fernando Valley, which he later

developed into the suburb of Tarzana. To pay his expensive lifestyle and to cover his

misadventures in financial investments he wrote an average of three novels a year. The

first Tarzan film was produced in 1918, When the Olympic swimming champion Johnny

Weissmuller took the role in the 1930's, the films became really popular.

In 1933 Burroughs was elected mayor of California Beach. He married in 1935 Florence

Dearholt (they divorced in 1942). During World War II Burroughs served at the age of 66

as a war correspondent in the South Pasific. He also wrote columns ('Laugh It Off) for

Honolulu Advertiser (1941-42, 1945). Burroughs died of a heart ailment on March 19, in

1950.

Edgar Rice Burroughs - Venus 2 - Lost on Venus.pdf

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