When "Tarzan of the Apes" was published in "The All-Story" in 1912,
Edgar Rice Burroughs was just another would-be writer struggling to
support himself and his family by penning adventure stories for
readers of "the pulps," the cheap mass-market magazines popular at
the time. When he died in 1950, he was the bestselling author of
the twentieth century, overseeing interests that spanned
publishing, movies, radio, newspaper syndication, toys, even real
estate. He had millions of enthusiastic readers around the world
and had earned the respect of magazines that never published his
stories: "The Saturday Evening Post" admitted of Burroughs's
writing, "There are pages of his books which have the authentic
flash of storytelling genius." He was, in short, a publishing
wonder who had unexpectedly created the century's first superhero,
Tarzan -- a pop-culture icon that has known few rivals.
In "Tarzan Forever: The Life of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Creator of
Tarzan, " John Taliaferro vividly recounts the remarkable life and
career of the originator of Tarzan. Drawn extensively from
Burroughs's own correspondence, memos, and manuscripts,
Taliaferro's richly detailed narrative reveals how Burroughs, a
down-on-his-luck Chicago pencil-sharpener salesman, first wrote
about his most famous character, how he grasped the appeal of this
"feral god," and how be spent the rest of his life nurturing and
protecting it. Burroughs, Taliaferro explains, was a pioneer of
synergy: His cross-promotional and marketing efforts helped sustain
Tarzan's popularity for decades and increased Burroughs's
readership far beyond North America. In the course of his career,
Burroughs wrote scores of other books and stories, including
westerns and adventures set on Mars, Venus, and at the Earth's
core. In an attempt to graduate from the pulps, he made several
stabs at the modern genre of social realism, though inevitably his
editors and fans drove him back to his tried-and-true -- more
Tarzan tales. Even today, a half-century after Burroughs's death,
the character of Tarzan thrives; the arrival of Disney's animated
"Tarzan" is only the latest manifestation.
Important as Tarzan was to Burroughs, Taliaferro makes clear
that Burroughs's life was at least as colorful as the life of his
jungle creation. Burroughs was a cavalryman in the Arizona
Territory, a cowboy in Idaho, a speculator in Southern California
real estate, a Hollywood producer, a witness to the bombing of
Pearl Harbor, and even a war correspondent in the South Pacific.
Unlike Tarzan, though, Burroughs was far from the ideal balance of
nature and nurture. He failed at two marriages, and despite the
enormous popularity of his books and MGM's Tarzan movies of the
thirties and forties, his lavish appetites forever pushed him to
the brink of bankruptcy. Shaky finances ultimately drove him to
develop his beloved California ranch, Tarzana, into the town of
Tarzana, a Los Angeles suburb that today stands as the antithesis
of Tarzan's African paradise. Quick to speak out on the
controversial issues of his day, Burroughs wrote essays and stories
advocating eugenics, the extermination of "moral imbeciles," and
the deportation of Japanese-Americans during World War II.
In "Tarzan Forever, " Taliaferro captures all of Burroughs's
gifts and flaws, his contradictions and complexities. The result is
a deeply satisfying look at one of the architects of today's
popular culture.
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