His father had been a major in the Union army during the Civil War. Edgar Rice Burroughs attended the Brown School then, due to a diphtheria epidemic, Miss Coolie's Maplehurst School for Girls, then the Harvard School, Phillips Andover and the Michigan Military Academy. He was a mediocre student and flunked his examination for West Point. He worked a variety of jobs all over the country: a cowboy in Idaho, a gold miner in Oregon, a railroad policeman in Utah, a department manager for Sears Roebuck in Chicago. He published "A Princess of Mars" under the title "Under the Moons of Mars" in six parts between February and July of 1912. The same "All-Story Magazine" put out his immediately successful "Tarzan of the Apes" in October of that year. Two years later the hardback book appeared, and on January 27, 1918, the movie opened on Broadway starring 'Elmo Lincoln' as Tarzan. It was one of the first movies to gross over $1,000,000. Burroughs was able to move his family to the San Fernando Valley in 1919, converting a huge estate into Tarzana Ranch. He was in Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941 and remained in Hawaii as a war correspondent. Afterward he returned home with a heart condition. On March 19, 1950, alone in his home after reading the Sunday comics in bed, he died. By then he had written 91 novels, 26 of which were about Tarzan. The man whose books have sold hundreds of millions of copies in over thirty languages once said "I write to escape ... to escape poverty".
Burroughs second wife, Florence Gilbert, was earlier married to producer / actor Ashton Dearholt.
The city of Tarzana, California, where Burroughs spent the last years of his life, was named in honor of his most famous creation, Tarzan.
Biography/bibliography in: "Contemporary Authors". New Revision Series, Vol. 131, pages 47-51. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2005.
An excellent guide to Burroughs Mars books is "A Guide to Barsoom" by John Flint Roy.
Didnt start writing until the age of 35.
His first Mars book was written under the pseudonym Normal Bean. The publishers thought that it was a typographical error, and changed it to Norman Bean. Burroughs assumption was that nobody would take the story seriously, and therefore used this pseudonym to infer that he is in "a normal state of mind.".
Most of his stories are written in the first person.
Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin once said that Burroughs was his favorite author.
A publisher who had intended to reject Burroughs book, "The Outlaw of Torn", wrote him to say, "My reviewer was up half the night reading it!"
Pictured on a nondeminated ("forever") USA commemorative postage stamp, issued 17 August 2012 in Tarzana, California. The initial issue price was 45.
The Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., company offices are located on Ventura Blvd. in Tarzana and the setting is literally a jungle oasis housing memorabilia from the era of the Tarzan creator. His former home in Chicagos Oak Park, where he grew up, is still standing and a bronze marker noting this was placed in the front yard at 700 Linden Ave. on the 100th anniversary of his birth.
Upon his death, his remains were interred under the walnut tree at the Burroughs Office Building in Tarzana, Los Angeles, California.
Great-grandfather of film director Wes Anderson.
By the time of his death, he was the worlds best-selling author.
His writings have been cited as a huge influence by numerous writers, artists and scientists such as Ray Bradbury, Carl Sagan, Arthur Clarke, Jane Goodall, Ronald Reagan, Billy Graham, George Lucas, and James Cameron.
Was a drifter for seven years and supported himself with low-paid jobs such as selling pencil sharpeners before he began writing.
Daughter, Joan Burroughs, married actor James Pierce; who portrayed the Jungle Lord in TARZAN AND THE GOLDEN LION (Robertson-Cole Prod./Film Booking Office. 1927). The couple went on to portray Tarzan and Jane in the TARZAN Radio Series (1932-36).
Death, only, renders hope futile.
I loved her. I still love her, though I curse her in my sleep, so nearly,one are love and hate, the two most powerful and devastating emotions,that control man, nations, life.
Anger and hate against one we love steels our hearts, but contempt or,pity leaves us silent and ashamed.
I write to escape; to escape poverty.
Imagination is but another name for super intelligence.
It never seems to occur to some people, that, like beauty, a sense of,humor may sometimes be fatal.
She did not admire him any more than she had. It was merely that she,considered him the Lesser of two evils.
The more one listens to ordinary conversations the more apparent it,becomes that the reasoning faculties of the brain take little part in,the direction of the vocal organs.
Love is a strange master, and human nature is still stranger.
Were there no desire there would be no virtue, and because one man,desires what another does not, who shall say whether the child of his,desire be Vice or Virtue?,And so, in silence, we walked the surface of a dying world, but in the breast of one of us at least had been born that which is ever oldest, yet ever new. I loved Dejah Thoris. The touch of my arm upon her naked shoulder had spoken to me in words I would not mistake, and I knew that I had loved her since the first moment my eyes had met hers that first time in the plaza of the dead city of Korad.
I got this story from someone who had no business in the telling of it.
I had aimed at Mars and was about to hit Venus unquestionably the all-time cosmic record for poor shots.
So glorious does love transfigure its object"~Tarzan,. . . smiles are the foundation of beauty.
Imagination is but another name for super intelligence.
I do not understand exactly what you mean by fear," said Tarzan. "Like lions, fear is a different thing in different men, but to me the only pleasure in the hunt is the knowledge that the hunted thing has power to harm me as much as I have to harm him. If I went out with a couple of rifles and a gun bearer, and twenty or thirty beaters, to hunt a lion, I should not feel that the lion had much chance, and so the pleasure of the hunt would be lessened in proportion to the increased safety which I felt. ""Then I am to take it that Monsieur Tarzan would prefer to go naked into the jungle, armed only with a jackknife, to kill the king of beasts," laughed the other good naturedly, but with the merest touch of sarcasm in his tone. "And a piece of rope," added Tarzan.
I took her in my arms and kissed her. And thus in the midst of a city of wild conflict, filled with the alarms of war; with death and destruction reaping their terrible harvest around her, did Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium, true daughter of Mars, the God of War, promise herself in marriage to John Carter, Gentleman of Virginia.
What--has O-Tar seen an ulsio and fainted?" demanded I-Gos with broad sarcasm. "Men have died for less than that, ancient one," E-Thas reminded him. "I am safe," retorted I-Gos, "for I am not a brave and popular son of the jeddak of Manator.
No fiction is worth reading except for entertainment. If it entertains and is clean, it is good literature, or its kind. If it forms the habit of reading, in people who might not read otherwise, it is the best literature.
P33- the wail of the living had answered the call of universal motherhood within her wild beast which the dead could not still.
I am glad," he said, "that I do not dwell in your country among such savage peoples. Here, in Caspak, men fight with men when they meet - men of different races - but their weapons are first for the slaying of beasts in the chase and defense. We do not fashion weapons solely for the killing of man as do your peoples. Your country must indeed be a savage country, from which you are fortunate to have escaped to the peace and security of Caspak.
The whole fabric of our religion is based on superstitious belief in lies that have been foisted upon us for ages by those directly above us, to whose personal profit and aggrandizement it was to have us continue to believe as they wished us to believe.
He longed for the little cabin and the sun-kissed sea - for the cool interior of the well-built house, and for the never-ending wonders of the many books.
To lose the only creature in all his world who ever had manifested love and affection for him was the greatest tragedy he had ever known.
They say that none of us exists, except in the imagination of his fellows, other than as an intangible, invisible mentality.
What are you Tarzan?" he asked aloud. "An ape or a man? If you are an ape, you will do as the apes do - leave one of your kind in the jungle to die if it suited your whim to go elsewhere. If you are a man, you will return to protect your kind. You will not run away from one of your own people, because one has run away from you.
As a mistress, death seemed lacking in many essentials. Therefore, I decided not to die.
We are between the wild thoat of certainty and the mad zitidar of fact.
Twenty years have intervened; for ten of them I lived and fought for Dejah Thoris and her people, and for ten I have lived upon her memory.
Lives there upon any world such another as John Carter, Prince of Helium? Lives there another man who could fight his way back and forth across a warlike planet, facing savage beasts and hordes of savage men, for the love of a woman?,Tut, tut! I have often admonished my pupils to count ten before speaking. Were I you, Mr. Philander, I should count at least a thousand, and then maintain a discreet silence.
Day had now given away to night and as we wandered along the great avenue lighted by the two moons of Barsoom, and with Earth looking down upon us out of her luminous green eye, it seemed that we were alone in the universe, and I, at least, was content that it should be so.
I have discovered that the world over, unusual weather prevails at all times of the year.
Teach me to speak the language of men.
If your vocation be shoeing horses, or painting pictures, and you can do one or the other better than your fellows, then you are a fool if you are not proud of your ability. And so I am very proud that upon two planets no greater fighter has ever lived than John Carter, Prince of Helium.
If I sometimes seem to take too great pride in my fighting ability, it must be remembered that fighting is my vocation.
Mine own people do not care for me, John Carter; I am too unlike them. It is a sad fate, since I must live my life amongst them.
There was one slight, desperate chance, and that I decided I must take--it was for Dejah Thoris, and no man has lived who would not risk a thousand deaths for such as she.
But the wireless," asked Momulla. "What has the wireless to do with our remaining here?" "Oh yes," replied Gust, scratching his head. He was wondering if the Maori were really so ignorant as to believe the preposterous lie he was about to unload upon him. "Oh yes! You see every warship is equipped with what they call a wireless apparatus. It lets them talk to other ships hundreds of miles away, and it lets them listen to all that is said on these other ships.
As much as I enjoy a fight, I cannot always indulge myself, and just now I had more weighty matters to occupy my time than spilling the blood of strange warriors.
p 18 - Hundreds of thousands of years ago our ancestors of the dim and distant past faced the same problems which we must face in the same primeval forest. That we are here today evidences their victory.
P44- in tarzans clever little mind many thoughts revolved and back of these was his divine power of reason.
I should at least die as I had lived—fighting.
It never seems to occur to some people, that, like beauty, a sense of humor may sometimes be fatal.
Love is a strange master, and human nature is still stranger.
Anger and hate against one we love steels our hearts, but contempt or pity leaves us silent and ashamed. .
