I
n the pantheon of 20th
century authors, few figures stand taller than Edgar Rice Burroughs. His novels have sold millions of
copies over the past century, and his most famous creation— Tarzan—is one of the best-known fictional characters in the world, having been published in thirty-six languages. Everyone knows of Tarzan—he’s one of the few fictional characters to have a notation in the dictionary—but sadly, few people today are as aware of his creator. And that’s a shame. In his heyday Burroughs was as much an international celebrity as writers such as Stephen King are today. To truly understand Burroughs’ literary legacy it’s important
that one know the man himself. His is a true rags- to-riches story, filled with as much adventure as one of his thrill-a-page novels. Burroughs was born in Chicago on September 1, 1875, the fifth son of George and Mary Burroughs. By all accounts, the younger Burroughs enjoyed a relatively
comfortable
childhood, reports John Taliaferro in his definitive biography
TARZAN
FOREVER: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS (Scribner). He attended a half dozen public and private schools, primarily because his parents insisted on pulling him from one school and placing him in another at the first sign of a public outbreak of disease. In 1891, their worst fears were realized
when an
influenza epidemic swept Chicago. Burroughs was 16 at the time, and his parents made the decision to send him to Idaho where his brothers, George and Harry, had established a cattle ranch. Burroughs took to the cowboy lifestyle with gusto, riding horses, mending fences, and reveling in the physical nature of the work. But his range-riding days were short-lived; six months later, his parents enrolled him in the Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. When that didn’t work out, Burroughs was sent to the Michigan Military Academy at Orchard Lake. Burroughs’ time at the MMA had its ups and downs. Just two
months into his stay, miserable and homesick, he deserted and took a train back to Chicago. However, he returned shortly thereafter at the behest of the school’s commandant, Capt. Charles King, who told Burroughs’ father that he felt the boy deserved a second chance.
Upon graduation Burroughs attempted to enlist at West Point,
but failed the entrance exam. He briefly returned to the Michigan Military Academy as an instructor; then, at age 20, decided to enlist in the Army as a private. He was attached to the Seventh Cavalry at Fort Grant in the Arizona Territory, where he quickly contracted dysentery. Upon his release from the hospital Burroughs joined in the pursuit of renegade Indians, though he never caught any. Many of Burroughs’ adventures in the wilds of Arizona made
their way into his novels, including APACHE DEVIL and THE WAR CHIEF. “A writer’s own life experiences nearly always have a profound effect upon their work,” observes artist William Stout, a lifelong Burroughs fan. “It usually is what gives a writer the qualities that make him or her unique.” In 1897, thanks to the intervention of his father, Burroughs—who despised his commanding officer and had grown weary of serving in the desolate backwaters of Arizona—was discharged from the Army. He returned to Idaho to work once again on his brothers’ ranch. That was the first of many jobs that Burroughs would hold in the intervening years, notes George McWhorter, curator of the Edgar Rice Burroughs
Memorial
Collection at the University of Louisville in Kentucky. “I think he held something like eighteen different jobs before becoming a writer,” McWhorter notes. “The most important was head of the stenography department at Sears, Roebuck & Co. They offered him an increase in salary if he would stay on, and he said, ‘No, I want to be my own boss.’” Indeed, Burroughs, who
had married his first wife, Emma, in 1900, held an eclectic array of occupations
before selling his first novel, including police officer, gold miner, quack remedy pitchman, and pencil sharpener salesman. According to the ERB, Inc. website, it was while working as the latter that Burroughs was inspired to try his hand at writing. Part of Burroughs’ job involved checking the placement of the company’s advertisements in various pulp magazines. The job left him with plenty of free time, which he spent reading. Unimpressed by the poorly written pulp stories stacked on his desk, Burroughs was confident he could do better. The financial difficulties experienced by Burroughs during this period cannot be overstated. Before taking the job with the
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