Burroughs Books

Good book strong fiction for it day. Easy to get involved in the story. Edgar Rice Burroughs was a very progressive thinker.

Let me start by saying that I enjoy a good story as much as anybody. Further, this is not my first time with either Burroughs or John Carter.The stories are what they are,rollicking adventures aimed squarely at young adult males of the early 20th century. Not a lot of deep plot development,a fair amount of gadgets, a few monsters and literally non-stop action.The writing style is typical for the period;characters are fairly 2 dimensional, descriptions leave room for individual interpretation and logic is all but forgotten when it gets inconvenient. I first read these stories when I was in my late teens-early twenties;I must admit they were easier to take when I was younger and less critical. Still they are enjoyable, if somewhat predictable(chase the kidnappers, fight, chase the kidnappers some more, fight some more...you get the idea).
What's sort of new is the format. We have the first 5 Mars books in one volume, which is perhaps a bit much. After the third book, John Carter becomes almost a secondary character.I've always had the feeling that Burroughs would get bored with a book at about chapter 15;few of them are much longer than that, and many tend to wrap up with alarming speed at that point. And this is the first book I've ever read that has a disclaimer regarding violence, cultural attitudes and racial stereotyping.
In short, we have a good volume of classic science fantasy at a reasonable value. It's a good introduction for those who wish to experience a taste of Burroughs Mars, and a handy collection for those who've already been there...PS

I was really looking forward to exploring the early fantasy works of E. Rice Burroughs, having recently gone gaga over the collected fantastic works of R. E. Howard. How disappointed, then, I was to discover that this volume offered the most disgracefully inconvenient physical format I have ever seen in a book. The pages are the most peculiar size; the print is way too small; the margins are non-existent, meaning you must crack the book open with all your strength to discern the letters hiding toward the spine (not exactly conducive to relaxed bedtime reading); and there's nary an illustration to be found. What should be, say, a ten-page chapter resultantly occupies two huge overcrowded pages that you can scarcely get your hands around. The format, frankly, reminds me of a cheapo computer printout, lacking only the photo offset typeface. Foul! Bah! Woe! Fie! Seek Burroughs's works elsewhere: how could you possibly deduce a fair idea of anyone's works from this witches'-brew of a manifestation? Aargh!! (Aren't those nice words? I'm feeling especially playful.)

I found the first book of this series hidden in a closet when I was ten. It woke me up to my own inner feelings of how a real man should be, how a real man should love, and how he should fight for every aspect of that love. Every book in the series is a short read but you must read them with your heart. Be standing next to Captain Jack Carter when he is risking life and limb for the love of Dejah Thoris. Feel his courage course through your own veins. Carter is an unstoppable character in a life changing set of books that are a treasure in my own life.

What an idiot! Makes no sense.

Bless my soul jelly roll, this is not ordinary literary criticism about sources and influences but an epic drama, a hero's journey. A murderer, a schizophrenic, a male prostitute and an alcoholic read a proto-Nazi theory of everything and find personal redemption through pop culture.

But is this the final frame of reference? Every generation since has struggled to re-frame the meaning of the past day by day, and I suspect that's what this book (or its subject matter anyway) is "really" about. It's post-modern, rock-and-roll, cheese bait and cadillac fins. You be the poem.

Dr. Lardas' grounding of the early Beats' intellectual program in their communal reading of Oswald Spengler's _Decline of the West_ is an unusually substantive contribution to the field. Too often, monographs on the Beats are either tedious [strange] political treatises masquerading as literary history, or hagiographies of Kerouac's youthful wanderlust, neither of which category of inquiry could possibly add anything to the witness of the individual artists in question through their works. However, Lardas shows that Spengler's vision of the cyclical nature of civilization and the contemporeneity of the end of the Western European cycle led Burroughs, Kerouac and Ginsberg to look for the seeds of the next cycle in the vibrant, marginalized communities of which they were a part.

Dr. Lardas' prose style can best be described as "sparkling ramble". The energy of his ideas, bursting with the Mediterranean vigor of his jacket photo, at times overwhelms the larger structure of the book that is laid upon them. Happily enough this compositional tension congrues with the subject matter.

Wow, this book is enormous... but finishing it was not at all exhausting. Burroughs discusses a seemingly unlimited range of topics and ideas including conspiracies, state authority, language and the "word virus" theory, magic, Brion Gysin and the dream machine, cut-ups, astral projection, punks, the Beatniks, his books, various drugs, drug laws, and plenty more. Reading the interviews is an unbeatable way to get insight into this fascinating man, and to see the transitions he went through in his life. In his old age he seemed to have transformed into such a sweet and compassionate individual, and it is really very beautiful to hear the things he had to say by this time.
Many of the ideas that are undercurrents throughout his books are discussed in a straightforward, and casual manner in these interviews. This makes the book a very interesting supplement for avid Burroughs fans, and it reveals how amazingly insightful he was. At first I was a bit surprised that this book is published by Semiotext(e), whose books are consistently amazing and thought provoking (not that I didn't think his work is worthy, but the publisher usually puts out books of serious academic philosophy and political theory, while Burroughs is predominantly a novelist)... the connection became very clear while reading the interviews, especially the one in which Burroughs and many renowned French postmodern philosophers were in a conference together, including Deleuze and Foucault. In the interview based on this conference, many of their similarities are exposed. After reading this book, it became very apparent how far ahead Burroughs was from Foucault (a highly influential philosopher who examined power relations and how knowledge is tied to control), and how well their work ties together. Burroughs was always suspicious of power and deeply analyzed power relations and state authority, but his views were always freshly presented with a twist of his unique character, which makes his interviews an amusing read.

Some of them are a bit dry, and there is some repetition throughout the book... after all, they were never meant to be collected together. I wouldn't cut any of them, why opt for less when you could simply skip them? This is a nice book to own, because you can easily come to it at any time and read a single interview, but it really is amazing to read the whole thing front to back. Gives a different feeling than reading them sporadically.

While any book collecting the words of William Burroughs, & particularly any Burroughs book of this size, is cause for celebration, this particular book has some serious editorial flaws. There is a great deal of alteration to the interview transcripts, there is repetition within the book & in relation to other books, & there are many obvious errors.

The interviews, says Sylvere Lotringer at the outset, were altered from their original form in order to better serve the flow of the book. While this is understandable or even necessary given the number of interviews collected here, some of the editorial choices destroy any sense of the original interviews. In several cases Lotringer collapses different interviews with different interviewers from different times into one, creating a fictionalized pastiche of Burroughs live. & in other cases the editing of transcripts is so severe, as with the Playboy drug panel, that Burroughs comes out seeming like the subject of the article when originally he was just another participant. The thrill of the interview format is in seeing how a particular subject creates on the spot, how he interacts with the other participants & how the ideas of his work transfer to his life. While there's a good deal of originals throughout the book, many interviews needlessly lose the spontaneity of the originals as a result of editorial tinkering.

In addition, there is repetition, particularly from other books that an avid Burroughs reader would already have. There is material reprinted from the Re/Search book on Burroughs, as well as Victor Bockris's With William Burroughs: A Report from the Bunker. The pieces culled from the latter are particularly frustrating, since that book was already a collection of interviews. In addition, those pieces tend to be edited here! To reprint interviews already collected in book form is wasteful, but to alter them further is absurd. We would have been much better off with the complete transcripts of previously unavailable material, rather than the inclusion of recycled, re-edited, already-available interviews.

Finally, there are basic editorial errors throughout the book. Typographical errors, sometimes quite embarrassing (as when Burroughs tells David Bowie of a sound below the level of hearing - below 16 'Mertz'!), litter the whole book. There are several times where paragraphs are repeated word for word on a single page. There are even interviews that end in the middle of a sentence simply because that sentence came at the end of a page. As an editor myself, I can spot the telltale signs of unchecked OCRing (optical character recognition) - in other words, the editor scanned the interviews into his computer, used the OCR program to convert it to a text format, & never bothered to check the accuracy of the results. Any competent copyeditor would spot such errors from a mile away & easily fix them; the fact that this book has been published without such necessary editorial attention is disgraceful.

That said, there are many interviews collected here which would otherwise be impossible to find. There are translations from French & German, there are reprints from the myriad small presses Burroughs associated with in England, there are curiosities & oddities that might not have otherwise seen the light of day. For these pieces alone, this book remains a necessary purchase for us Burroughsphiles. But the errors of the editor keep this book far from being the last word on his interviews.

That Burroughs is a fascinating read in any format goes without saying. For all the intelligence, humor, & world-weary wisdom he imparted, he surely deserves a better publication than this.

yeah yeah i know there are so many mad geniuses in the beat movement. burroughs however is the godfather of all. this book is the bible of burroughs interviews as well as his thought. there are a few interviews with his other beat cronies but most of them are just naked burroughs. some of the interviews are a little dry but i wouldn't cut a one of them.few could write with more imagination than w.s. and even less could say it better or be more thoughtful or provacative. god i miss him. to read burroughs is to never again think the same. what freud and jung etal claimed to know of the psyche only burroughs truly explored.long may he wave. i highly recommend this book. then after you get this read then tackle is compilation word virus

The restaurant selection is wondrous and the reviews are unbiased, unpartisan, and accurate. I have had many wonderful meals thank to this book. Highly recommended.

After several trips to New York, I wanted to strike out on my own in search of interesting restaurants. I sat down with this book and a city map, and plotted out likely destinations.

I, the visitor, had the opportunity to act as tour guide for my New York City relatives. At an opportune mealtime, I was able to lead us to a nearby destination, and find a place that made everyone happy.

The Eclectic Gourmet is just as advertised, a collection of good, but off of the mainstream, restaurants that are guaranteed to provide an interesting and often adventurous dining experience.

After reading raves from experts I respect like Ruth Reichl, I found this book a total disappointment. Save your money.

My mother read this book aloud to me as a young child and I was enthralled with this story.I credit this experience with making me the avid reader I still am to this day!!I asked my mother for the title recently and when she told me I ordered it and was not disappointed with the story in fact found it as exciting today as all those years ago!!!

This book by Edgar Rice Burroughs was originally published in two parts, in 1914 and 1915. It is about a caveman named Nu. In the first story, Nu time travels to the early 20th century and meets a girl who is the reincarnation of his old girlfriend. Tarzan actually appears as a minor character in this story. In the second story, Nu ends up back in his own time period. This being Burroughs, Nu goes through various hardships before he ends up with his lady love. This is a minor Burroughs book, but it's fairly entertaining.

"The Eternal Savage" is an interesting off shoot by Edgar Rice Burroughs of his most famous creation, Tarzan. "The Eternal Savage" was originally published in two parts, "The Eternal Lover" in "All-Story Weekly" and "Sweetheart Primeval" in "All-Story Cavalier Weekly." "Nu of the Neocene" was ERB's original working title for the first part of the story, which does have John Clayton (Tarzan), his wife Jane, and infant son Jack as part of the story, but do not try to make it fit into the chronology of the Tarzan series because Jack's age is going to mess things up when it comes to being of age during World War I.

Nu, son of Nu, is a troglodyte who is out hunting a sabre tooth tiger in order to prove himself as being worthy of Nat-ul, the daughter of Tha. But during an earthquake Nu is buried alive in a cave and then a hundred thousands years pass. At that point, Victoria Custer and her brother Barney are visiting Lord and Lady Greystoke at their African estate, where they are enjoying a big game hunt. Victoria has a fear of earthquakes, even if she sees signs of one that happened a long time ago. She has also been having dreams of a strong manly figure that has captured her imagination. She is about to accept a proposal of marriage from William Curtiss, who has traveled halfway around the world to propose, when there is an earthquake and she faints. Of course, the earthquakes opens up the sealed cave and Nu comes walking out to find things have change (the monkeys do not know his tribe). At this point the only other thing you need to know to have a good idea of where this one is going is that Victoria looks exactly like Nat-ul.

Actually, what will come to mind when you read "The Eternal Savage" is going to be the O. Henry type-twist that ERB springs on his readers halfway through "The Eternal Savage." At that point the title will actually start to make sense to you. The twist is what elevates this pulp fiction yarn to at least average potboiler status. You have to keep in mind that this is still early Burroughs and that he is still trying to find a way of getting beyond his basic primal male going after the civilized female plotline. It is in his science fiction series, especially the John Carter Martian novels, that ERB is his most imaginative, but there is a touch of that here. "The Eternal Savage" is a minor Burroughs novel, but worth a look at for his fans.

For those of us who went through a phase of tracking down ACE paperback editions of everything Edgar Rice Burroughs ever wrote, it is interesting to see how many of his yarns were originally published in different issues of different pulp fiction magazines of the day. Such is the case with "The Mad King," a tale of confused identities involving European royalty in the tradition of "The Prisoner of Zenda." The first part was published in "All-Story Weekly" as "The Mad King" in March of 1914 with the follow up, "Barney Custer of Beatrice" appearing the following year in "Blue Book Magazine."

The story is set in the fictional land of Lutha where the corrupt regent Peter of Blentz has been keeping Leopold, the late king's mentally unbalanced son, locked up. But after a decade's imprisonment Leopold has escaped and the regent has his minister of War, Coblich, order Captain Maenck to recapture Leopold. Meanwhile, American tourist Barney Custer is visiting his mother's homeland. Seeing a description of the "mad king," he saves a young woman from a runaway horse and on a whim introduces himself as the "mad king."

At this point ERB pours on the contrivances. The young woman believes him, at which point explaining the truth does no good, because she is really the Princess Emma von der Tann, who father supported the old king and would like to see nothing better than Leopold assume the throne. The whole point of the first part of the story is to get the real Leopold on the throne, which does nothing to resolve the romantic tension between Barney and Emma, especially in light of all the political intrigue. The second part finds that the problems of Barney and Lutha are not settled by having Leopold on the throne and Burroughs plays on the various tensions in Europe that were leading the continent towards the First World War.

Your enjoyment of this early ERB potboiler depends almost entirely on your tolerance for confused identities and your knowledge of European politics in the years before WWI. Burroughs would use the idea of look alike characters often, most notably in a couple of Tarzan novels, which is one of the reasons this is an average ERB offering. Burroughs does have a plausible reason for why Barney and Leopold look so much alike, but that really just amounts to another trick from the same deck. You do get strong dosages of adventure and romance that you come to expect from a Burroughs pulp fiction yarn, but the total package is not especially special.

One of my favorites of ERB's stand-alone novels. The resemblance to The Prisoner of Zenda/Rupert of Hentzau is uncanny, even to the two part structure of the story; one could almost say they were twins. This version of the story, set to the backdrop of pre and early World War I, substitutes an American for an English imposter, but for all intents and purposes this is the same story told in Burrough's style.

American, Barney Custer, travelling in Europe visits, Lutha, the homeland of his mother, located near the border of Austria and Serbia. He is instantly caught up in the politics of the two factions within the nation. For those that have not read Prisoner of Zenda, the premise is that the main character bears an almost twin-like resemblance to the nation's king who is being menaced by a rival to the throne, the resulting confusion between the two men and love for the king's betrothed provide the meat of the story plot.

The original Prisoner of Zenda is by far the better adult read, as it incorporates more twists and deeper character development. However, for early teens, or just a fun read without the moral agonizing, this is the better choice. P-)

This novel, originally published as multiple parts in the All Story Weekly in 1914 and 1915, is an example of a genre popular at the time: The Graustarkian novel. Works of this type typically deal with political intrigue, heavily laced with adventure and romance set in some mythical eastern European kingdom. Anthony Hope's "The Prisoner of Zenda" The Prisoner of Zenda and Rupert of Hentzau (Penguin Classics)and George Barr McCutcheson's "Graustark" Truxton King (A Story Of Graustark)are among the most famous examples.

I originally read this during the great Edgar Rice Burroughs revival of the 1960s in an Ace paperback reprint.The Mad King (Ace Science Fiction Classic F-270)

In this reworking of the theme of a commoner filling in for the missing ruler of the country, we have Barney Custer of Beatrice, Kansas taking the place of the 'Mad' King of Lutha. While far from original, Burrough's use of action and adventure make this an enjoyable tale. If Anthony Hope hadn't written what is essentially the same story 20 years earlier, it would be even better. Be that as it may, the basic plot idea has remained a staple throughout the intervening decades turning up in movies and in books. Moon Over Parador, Dave and Double Star

One of the more interesting things about this book is that another of Burrough's novels; The Eternal Lover (aka The Eternal Savage)The Eternal Savage: Nu of the Neocene (Bison Frontiers of Imagination) takes place between parts 1 and 2 of this novel and deals with events that occur to Barney's sister.

saddly i report on the passing of sarkis atamian on 12/27/2005..
after a long illness and being unable to finish origins #2...
hail and farewell...ken humphreys

THE AUTHOR FAILS TO BRING UP THE STORY OF WILLIAM MILDIN, THE EARL OF STREATHAM, A CHILD WHO LIVED WITH "APES" AFTER BEING MAROONED ON THE AFRICAN COAST IN THE 1800'S---A SUPPOSEDLY TRUE STORY THAT BURROUGHS "VAGUELY" REMEMBERS READING. EVEN IF ERB DIDNT READ THIS TALE, ITS AN AMAZING COINCIDENCE THAT THIS STORY WAS PUBLISHED IN AT LEAST TWO SOURCES IN THE PERIOD BEFORE BURRROUGHS WROTE TARZAN.

Artamian does a fabulous job of infering that ERB must have read (1) Paul Du Chaillu, a French non-academic who did the first field-work and specimen collection of gorillas in French Gabon in the mid 19th C (available from Amazon), and (2) J W Buell's "Heroes of the Dark Continent" of 1889 (one in the Auctions as I write this). He also has some excellent stuff on the place of ERB & Tarzan in early 20th C society; why Tarzan has lasting appeal; the child-hero myth; and a wonderfully concise critique of ERB's writing style. He gets a bit silly, however, trying to locate the Greystoke cabin using a too-literal analysis - Tarzan and D'Arnot couldn't have walked for many, many weeks through THIS part of Africa because ERB didn't mention the three rivers and the impassable swamp here. Hello! This is FICTION we are talking about here! He also concludes that ERBs "great apes" are a "composite or a photographic montage of the gorilla, the mbouve and the koola" but he makes no attempt to tell us what animals Du Chaillu was describing by these terms, only that they were "two brand new species". I suspect he is talking about Pan troglodytes verus, a west African subspecies of chimp and possibly Pan paniscus, the bonobo, but it is too small to fit the description. Du Chaillu would have only encountered the Western lowland subspecies of gorilla - Gorilla gorilla gorilla (see Kingdon's field guide). Artamian also sidesteps ERB's separation of apes (mangani) and gorillas (bolgani) as different species. Conclusion - ERB created a fictitious animal, and no it don't fit reality, but it's a great freakin story anyway.

Artamian then hi-jacks the thing for the last ten pages with his own spiritual philosophy and a waffle about Jungian archetypes and how the world has gone to the dogs because the hard light of science has made everyone disbelieve and oh! what a mess we're in! This stuff is very far removed from ERB's (and Tarzan's) no-nonsense, sceptical, good-old-common-sense approach to life. He does, however, point out that the old-fashioned values of selfless heroism and nobility that Tarzan personifies will almost certainly outlive the current fashion in sneering anti-heroes.

Charles Berlin, who wrote the other review here, told me his source for the William Mildin story is an article called "The Man Who Really Was... Tarzan" by Thomas Llewellan Jones in a March 1959 issue of "Man's Adventure" magazine. Let's hear it for Chas! We're talking REAL obsure stuff here. Mr Artamian, who prides himself on finding the TRUE source of Tarzan while other ERBologists (good term Sarkis!) have missed the mark, may just have... missed the mark. I hope there are old copies of "Man's Adventure" in the library in Wasilla, Alaska. If so, I await the next edition with much glee.

Great piece of research... but that accursed elusive shipwrecked sailor story! Damn!

Russell's book is a helpful addition to Burroughs scholarship, but it takes as its premise an idea that is somewhat spurious to begin with: that Burroughs's homosexuality has been largely ignored in investigations of his work.

Perhaps this is true in the sense that most critics do not spend an enormous amount of time on the subject. However, the reason most critics probably don't spend a lot of time on the subject is because Burroughs didn't either. His sexuality was an integrated part of his work, not an objectified other, as Russell would like to suggest.

I found Russell's evaluation to be bordering on revisionist history, making Burroughs out to be someone contemplating and promoting his homosexuality in the same way present-day gay activists do, instead of ignoring his feelings and drowning himself in substance abuse. Perhaps he should have begun his evaluation of Burroughs work with his 1970's novels when homosexuality comes to the forefront as a main theme in Burroughs's work, instead of in Junky, Queer and Naked Lunch where it is a side show to other struggles.

As well, and very surprisingly in a book attempting to address his sexuality, Russell makes very little of the reality that Burroughs was in a heterosexual relationship for a number of years and fathered a child, while acting as step-father to another. Obviously, he was nothing like what a responsible father of his day would have been, and it didn't stop him from having homosexual affairs on the side, but, this is the very point. He wasn't exclusively homosexual any more than he was heterosexual. He was somewhere in between, it seems, depending on when you asked him. The world of identity politics was just beginning while Burroughs began to write. Even though Russell points this very fact out, the polemical sexual status he creates seems almost absent from the world of Burroughs.

Remember, Burroughs did not even publish a book until he was 39. It wasn't until half of his life was over that he adopted an exclusively homosexual lifestyle. And, as his letters show, he sometimes went back and forth in his feelings on his sexuality, up until the 1960's. Russell paints this as Burroughs being the victim of an outside influence (hostile governments of the 1950's, though Burroughs was absent from North America/England in the 1950's) rather than a person struggling to define himself.

The other issue I have with this book is that it does what many critics of Naked Lunch have done: it attempts to impose a narrative on the book that fits their view. Just as there are many versions of what a literal reading of a religious text may say, the 'real' narrative of Naked Lunch is revealed by whichever author is writing about it. Russell cannot be criticizes too harshly for this, as he is only following in the footsteps of most critics before him.

Ultimately, what Russell does well is bring to light many of the issues around Burroughs and sexuality and encapsulate them in a single book. However, Russell's book suffers from the identity politics of the 1990's and lacks substance because of this, and his book comes across more militant than disinterested. This would have been a much better book had Russell not given in to the temptation to try and cover anything before the 1970's.

Though it's good to see that at last someone has written a book on Burroughs from a queer perspective, the author has such a limited and rigid idea of what counts as queer criticism that the book ultimately ignores most of what is interesting in Burroughs's fiction. The chapter on Naked Lunch, for example, focuses entirely on some rather questionable ideas about how to historicize the queer identity available in the 1950s, and thus ends up ignoring everything that is funny or satirical in a novel that is essentially comic and satirical (as well as being savage and caustic). The result is that every novel is viewed from a partial perspective that makes the book seem entirely thesis-driven, to the point that it simply ignores whatever is not grist for the author's mill.

It's amazing that it's taken this many years for someone to actually consider about Burroughs as a gay writer. All those Wild Boys are finally talked about as gay heroes in this excellent book. Jamie Russell made me return to the novels with new eyes. Of course Naked Lunch is about power and sex, of course the Wild Boys want to create a world without women. . . This book is a must-read for all Burroughs fans. Absolutely fantastic!!

Delightful plot, refreshing characters, and the portrait Ms. Burroughs drew of Texas and Texans made this misplaced Austinite very homesick. What a wonderful voice this author has!

First, I thought the characters were far better than those in most romances. The heroine was fresh and appealing, and the two lead male characters were, too. This book was very humorous, a lot of fun to read. I also like how the author wrote from the point of view of both the hero and the heroine, so that readers can get insight into BOTH of them. So many times, you just get one side of the story because it is only told from the woman's viewpoint. Not so here! I highly recommend this book. It is one of the best I have read in a LONG time.

I had the misfortune of picking up this book recently. The writing is horrible, and the story did not flow well at all. The book was 90% dialogue, and at one point I had the impression that the hero was gay - that's how unclear everything was. Stay away from this one.

This book reminds me of "The Burroughs Cyclopedia," a hardcover volume covering the characters, places, names, etc. of many more of Burroughs' works than simply the Tarzan series.

"Tarzan Novels" is a half-inch thick, standard sized trade paperback. That format alone makes me feel the $45 price is extravagant. The entries themselves, however, are much more in-depth than the same Tarzan-related entries in "The Burroughs Cyclopedia." Additionally, the illustrations are a welcome addition which is totally lacking in the straight text of TBC.

My caveat to the prospective buyer is that you are paying a premium price here. My personal thought is that $25 would be a fair price for this interesting volume. $45, however, is assuming a very generous donation from ERB fans.

For those that love the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs and specifically Tarzan this is the book for you. David Ullery has done a fantastic job in compiling ERB's Tarzon novels into one beautiful book. Anyone would be proud to add this one to their collection. As mentioned in a previous review, it may be a little higher priced but jeez we are talking Edgar Rice Burroughs. Great job Ullery!!!

This work is obviously a labor of love by a real Burroughs fan. Without reference to the Tarzan of the movies or comic books, the author gives us all kinds of details on the real thing -- Tarzan as he appeared first and at his greatest, in the books by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Several sections list and describe various facets of the books, such as different languages referred to in the narratives, the lost cities and civilizations that Tarzan encounters, and plot summaries. In the Cast of Characters section it's interesting to discover that in several instances there are multiple characters with the same name, but who appear in different volumes.

My big gripe is how much it costs. It's ridiculously overpriced. I don't know what the publishers were thinking (maybe "there's a sucker born every minute"), but that's far too much for what you get. Sure, it has an index, and sure, there are vintage illustrations by Roy Krenkel and J. Allen St. John (no Frazetta). But it's "trade" size and a paperback, for crying out loud. If I'd seen it in a store (I ordered it through the mail) I'd expect it to be priced [lower]. And a casual perusal turned up a few errors. Most were just typos, but in one case at least there was a bigger error. The city of Castrum Mare in Tarzan and the Lost Empire is given here as "Castra" Mare, and this is repeated several times throughout the book. Don't buy this book unless (1) you're rich, or (2) you're an ERB fanatic that can't live without it. Or, of course, if the price comes down. It's definitely worth borrowing, naturally.

Four stars for content, two for the price.