Tarzan of the Apes (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Read online

  Table of Contents

  FROM THE PAGES OF TARZAN OF THE APES

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS

  THE WORLD OF EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS AND TARZAN OF THE APES

  Introduction

  I - Out to Sea

  II - The Savage Home

  III - Life and Death

  IV - The Apes

  V - The White Ape

  VI - Jungle Battles

  VII - The Light of Knowledge

  BOY

  A BOY AND A DOG

  VIII - The Tree-top Hunter

  IX - Man and Man

  A is for Archer

  X - The Fear-Phantom

  XI - “King of the Apes”

  XII - Man’s Reason

  XIII - His Own Kind

  XIV - At the Mercy of the Jungle

  XV - The Forest God

  XVI - “Most Remarkable”

  XVII - Burials

  XVIII - The Jungle Toll

  XIX - The Call of the Primitive

  XX - Heredity

  XXI - The Village of Torture

  XXII - The Search Party

  XXIII - Brother Men

  XXI V - Lost Treasure

  XXV - The Outpost of the World

  XXVI - The Height of Civilization

  XXVII - The Giant Again

  XXVIII - Conclusion

  ENDNOTES

  INSPIRED BY TARZAN OF THE APES

  COMMENTS & QUESTIONS

  FROM THE PAGES OF

  TARZAN OF THE APES

  For a long time no sound broke the deathlike stillness of the jungle midday save the piteous wailing of the tiny man-child. (page 30)

  And then Tublat went to Kerchak to urge him to use his authority with Kala, and force her to give up little Tarzan, which was the name they had given to the tiny Lord Greystoke, and which meant “White-Skin.” (page 38)

  From early childhood he had used his hands to swing from branch to branch after the manner of his giant mother, and as he grew older he spent hour upon hour daily speeding through the tree tops with his brothers and sisters. (page 37)

  As the body rolled to the ground Tarzan of the Apes placed his foot upon the neck of his lifelong enemy and, raising his eyes to the full moon, threw back his fierce young head and voiced the wild and terrible cry of his people. (pages 61—62)

  His strange life had left him neither morose nor bloodthirsty. That he joyed in killing, and that he killed with a joyous laugh upon his handsome lips betokened no innate cruelty. He killed for food most often, but, being a man, he sometimes killed for pleasure, a thing which no other animal does; for it has remained for man alone among all creatures to kill senselessly and wantonly for the mere pleasure of inflicting suffering and death. (page 79)

  “Tarzan,” he continued, “is not an ape. He is not like his people. His ways are not their ways, and so Tarzan is going back to the lair of his own kind by the waters of the great lake which has no farther shore. You must choose another to rule you, for Tarzan will not return.” (page 101)

  “What a frightful sound!” cried Jane, “I shudder at the mere thought of it. Do not tell me that a human throat voiced that hideous and fearsome shriek.” (page 127)

  From the trees Tarzan of the Apes watched the solemn ceremony; but most of all he watched the sweet face and graceful figure of Jane Porter. (page 139)

  I am Tarzan of the Apes. I want you. I am yours. You are mine.

  (page 154)

  When Jane realized that she was being borne away a captive by the strange forest creature who had rescued her from the clutches of the ape she struggled desperately to escape, but the strong arms that held her as easily as though she had been but a day-old babe only pressed a little more tightly. (page 168)

  “Yes, Miss Porter, they were—cannibals.” (page 192)

  “I love you, and because I love you I believe in you. But if I did not believe, still should I love. Had you come back for me, and had there been no other way, I would have gone into the jungle with you—forever.” (page 211)

  Gradually he became accustomed to the strange noises and the odd ways of civilization, so that presently none might know that two short months before, this handsome Frenchman in immaculate white ducks, who laughed and chatted with the gayest of them, had been swinging naked through primeval forests to pounce upon some unwary victim, which, raw, was to fill his savage belly. (page 222)

  “My mother was an Ape, and of course she couldn’t tell me much about it. I never knew who my father was.” (page 252)

  Published by Barnes & Noble Books

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  New York, NY 10011

  www.barnesandnoble.com/classics

  Tarzan of the Apes was first published in 1914.

  Published in 2006 by Barnes & Noble Classics with new Introduction,

  Notes, Biography, Chronology, Inspired By, Comments & Questions, and

  For Further Reading.

  Introduction, Notes, and For Further Reading

  Copyright © 2006 by Maura Spiegel.

  Note on Edgar Rice Burroughs, The World of Edgar Rice Burroughs and

  Tarzan of the Apes, Inspired by Tarzan of the Apes, and Comments & Questions

  Copyright © 2006 by Barnes & Noble, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or

  transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including

  photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system,

  without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Barnes & Noble Classics and the Barnes & Noble Classics colophon are trademarks of Barnes & Noble, Inc.

  Tarzan of the Apes

  ISBN-13: 978-1-59308-227-7 ISBN-10: 1-59308-227-4

  eISBN : 978-1-411-43325-0

  LC Control Number 2005935858

  Produced and published in conjunction with:

  Fine Creative Media, Inc.

  322 Eighth Avenue

  New York, NY 10001

  Michael J. Fine, President and Publisher

  Printed in the United States of America

  QM

  3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS

  When Edgar Rice Burroughs sat down to write his now-legendary Tarzan of the Apes in 1911, he had a young family to support and a string of business failures weighing heavily on his mind. Among other ventures, he had sifted for gold in Idaho, run a stationery store, worked as a railroad policeman, and sold candy, light bulbs, and a snake-oil cure for alcoholism. Nothing led to success, however, and since he had been reduced to pawning some of his possessions for food, it’s reasonable to think that escapism played a role in inspiring his wildly imaginative early tales.

  Life was not always so financially fraught for Burroughs, who was born into a prosperous Chicago family on September 1, 1875. His father, a former Union Army officer, owned a distillery and then a battery company; his mother raised four sons, of whom Edgar was youngest. Also the most rebellious, he spent one unsuccessful year at Phillips Academy in Massachusetts before being sent to the Michigan Military Academy; there, although he excelled in Greek and Latin, his academic life took second place to writing and drawing for the school newspaper, horseback riding, and playing football. A taste for adventure and dreams of battling Apache warriors in Arizona led Burroughs to join the Army in 1896. But when poor health and boredom set in, he pleaded with his father to get him released from duty. After working for a short time for his father’s company and marrying his childhood sweetheart, Burroughs flailed from one
business failure to another before striking it rich with his fictional ape-man.

  His first Tarzan story, Tarzan of the Apes, was published in 1912 by the pulp-fiction magazine The All-Story. The tale of a man reared by apes in an African jungle caused a sensation among readers of all ages and quickly became a cultural icon. Despite Burroughs’s desire to write more serious fiction, demand for additional Tarzan adventures persisted throughout the author’s life; he created a total of twenty-four Tarzan tales. A secondary market for Tarzan comics, films, radio shows, and the like led Burroughs to create his own corporation, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., to manage the Tarzan empire.

  At home at Tarzana, his 540-acre estate in California, Burroughs held interviews, rode horses, and wrote. Besides a large number of books, including three science-fiction series (set on Mars, Venus, and in the hollow core of Earth), he also authored many patriotic journal pieces and, after witnessing the bombing of Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, served as a war correspondent in the South Pacific. After a year spent rereading all of his books, Edgar Rice Burroughs died of a heart attack while perusing the Sunday comics on March 19, 1950.

  THE WORLD OF EDGAR RICE

  BURROUGHS AND TARZAN OF THE APES

  1875 Edgar Rice Burroughs is born in Chicago on September 1 to George Tyler Burroughs and Mary Evaline Burroughs. His father, a former Union Army officer during the American Civil War, runs a successful distillery business. Mary Evaline, a talented writer, raises the four Burroughs children while intermittently compiling a book, Memoirs of a War Bride, which Edgar will help her publish in 1914.

  1876 Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is published.

  1881 Edgar enters the Brown School in Chicago. He and his brothers become friends with the four Hulbert sisters; the youngest, Emma, will become Edgar’s wife.

  1883 Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island is published.

  1885 A fire destroys George Burroughs’s distillery; over the next few years, he will create a new venture, the American Battery Company.

  1886 Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is published.

  1887 Diphtheria warnings motivate Mary Evaline to place Edgar in the private Maplehearst School for Girls until the outbreak subsides. Edgar exchanges letters with his two older brothers, Harry and George, who attend Yale. Arthur Conan Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet, the debut Sherlock Holmes story, is published.

  1888 Edgar enters the Harvard School in Chicago.

  1891 When a flu epidemic erupts, Edgar’s parents, concerned that he has had several bouts with childhood illness, remove him from school and send him to work on his older brothers’ ranch in Idaho; he develops what will be a lifelong passion for horseback riding. Under protest, he is sent in the fall to Phillips Academy in Massachusetts, where he contributes regularly to the school newspaper.

  1892 Edgar leaves Phillips because of ill health and poor grades. Hoping to provide his son some discipline, George sends Edgar to the Michigan Military Academy. The results are mixed: Edgar is punished for attempting to run away from the academy, but he then begins playing football, his studies improve, and he writes for the school newspaper.

  1894 Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book is published.

  1895 Burroughs graduates from the Michigan Military Academy, then tries but fails to secure a place at West Point. H. G. Wells’s The Time Machine is published.

  1896 The adventurous young man joins the U.S. Army and travels to the Arizona Territory with hopes of battling Apaches, but illness and boredom sour the experience. Wells’s The Island of Dr. Moreau is published.

  1897 Discharged from the army, Burroughs returns to Chicago and works for his father at the American Battery Company. He begins courting his childhood sweetheart, Emma Centennia Hulbert. An interest in drawing leads him to enroll for a short time in the Chicago Art Institute. Bram Stoker’s Dracula is published.

  1898 Burroughs leaves for Idaho to help his brothers on the family ranch. He opens a stationery shop in Pocatello, intending to import magazines and periodicals to the Wild West, but business is bad. Burroughs has a few poems published in the local newspaper. Wells’s The War of the Worlds is published.

  1899 After an unsuccessful trip to New York to try to secure another army post, Burroughs again works at the American Battery Company.

  1900 Edgar and Emma marry in Chicago. Sigmund Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams is published.

  1903 Burroughs leaves American Battery and takes Emma to Idaho to prospect for gold. Still interested in drawing, he also writes his first fiction, Minidoka, which he subtitles An Historical Fairy Tale. Jack London publishes The Call of the Wild.

  1904 The gold venture fails, and Burroughs struggles to make a living, working for the next few years at several jobs—among them railroad police officer, construction worker, door-to-door salesman, and candy vendor.

  1906 Still struggling to make ends meet, Burroughs attempts unsuccessfully to enlist in the Chinese army.

  1907 He takes a managerial job in the correspondence department at Sears, Roebuck.

  1908 A daughter, Joan, is born. Although he makes a decent living at Sears, a yearning for independence leads him to start his own advertising company, but it fails. Edgar and Emma pawn some possessions to make ends meet.

  1909 Burroughs begins hawking a supposed tonic for alcoholism, but authorities shut down the business. A son, Hulbert, is born.

  1911 After reading some pulp-fiction magazines, Burroughs writes his own story, “Under the Moons of Mars,” for which the magazine The All-Story pays him the impressive sum of $400. He begins writing Tarzan of the Apes.

  1912 All-Story accepts Tarzan of the Apes, paying Burroughs $700 for the novel, which it publishes in its entirety. Reader response is enthusiastic, and the magazine is flooded with requests for more Tarzan installments. Conan Doyle’s science-fiction novel The Lost World is published.

  1913 A son, John, is born. All-Story serializes The Gods of Mars. New Story serializes The Return of Tarzan; N. C. Wyeth paints the cover art for the third installment.

  1914 Tarzan of the Apes is released in book form. Burroughs writes many stories during the next few years. World War I begins.

  1915 Burroughs attempts to sell a number of works to Hollywood film companies. Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” is published.

  1916 Burroughs details a three-month family camping trip in the diary Auto-Gypsying. The family spends the winter in Los Angeles while he negotiates with film producers and tries to secure a commission to fight in World War I; he ultimately joins the reserves.

  1918 Two films based on Burroughs’s works, Tarzan of the Apes and The Romance of Tarzan, debut to great success, but Burroughs is frustrated by the simplistic way Hollywood depicts Tarzan. In addition to his fiction, Burroughs publishes patriotic articles.

  1919 He moves his family to California, where he buys a large ranch he names Tarzana.

  1920 Besides running the ranch and subdividing the land, Burroughs is busy with his writing; he will publish twenty-four Tarzan novels during his career, in addition to countless stories and articles.

  1923 Burroughs forms his own company, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., to handle increasing demands for Tarzan-related material and merchandise.

  1924 He publishes The Land That Time Forgot, a novel in which dinosaurs and winged humanoids, along with other primitive species and modern humans, live on an island in the South Pacific.

  1925 Tarzan of the Apes is now published in at least seventeen languages. The family celebrates Burroughs’s fiftieth birthday by taking a camping trip to the Grand Canyon.

  1929 The first daily comic strip featuring Tarzan appears.

  1930 Following many years of work to create a town out of the community that has grown up around Burroughs’s ranch, the first Tarzana post office opens. Despite his success with his Tarzan enterprise, Burroughs fails at other business ventures, including several investments in airplane technology. During the 1930s H. P. Lovecraf
t begins publishing science fiction works, increasing the popularity of the genre.

  1932 The premiere of the first Tarzan “talkie,” Tarzan, the ApeMan, is a big success; even Burroughs is pleased with the film, which stars Johnny Weissmuller. The first Tarzan radio show airs.

  1934 Flying lessons are Burroughs’s favorite pastime. He falls in love with an actress, Florence Dearholt; he and Emma divorce. Concerned that he is not considered a serious writer, he writes several pieces under pseudonyms, including an epic poem about Genghis Khan; most are rejected.

  1935 Edgar and Florence marry; they spend their honeymoon sailing and learning to surf in Hawaii.