Tarzan of the Apes
By Edgar Rice Burroughs
Written 1911
Published October1912 The All-Story Magazine

Edgar Rice Burroughs' third novel would introduce his most enduring characters. While Princess of Mars opened the publishing doors for Burroughs, Tarzan of the Apes would solidify his place as the creator of one of the most iconic characters of the 20th century. It would also be his breakthrough novel giving him some prestige and leverage moving forward in the publishing world. In some ways it is hard to reflect on the novel without looking at it through the lens of what is being created and how Tarzan has changed in multiple other venues.

Burroughs surreal Africa would surely have been influenced by the historical meeting and written account of Henry Morton Stanley searching out and meeting David Livingstone (1871) as well as the the works of H.Rider Haggard such as King Solomon Mines and She published in the 1880s. One can assume that Tarzan being raised by the apes was also influenced by such works as Rudyard Kiplings Jungle Book and the tales of Mowgli. Influenced does not mean copied both characters commune with the animals of the jungle but where Mowgli is one with animals, at times less than those he lives with, Tarzan grows to become master of the animals. Tarzan’s existence is a much more violent existence of learning to hunt and kill. Tarzan of the Apes unlike The Jungle Books was written explicitly for an adult audience. The modern thought that Tarzan is a character for juveniles has more to do with media interpretations and the changes in literary content in the last century.

Because Africa is considered the “dark” continent, meaning that much of it was unexplored by Europeans, Burrough’s will be able to create a fantastical Africa of immense jungle and lost cities but that is getting ahead of the story. In Tarzan of the Apes, his creativity gives us a boy raised by apes, pirates, a strong female character in Jane Porter and the rich milieu of equatorial Africa.

The story is an action adventure at its best, a far cry from the Johnny Weissmuller / Maureen O’Sullivan encounter of “Me, Tarzan- You, Jane”. The reader can tell that Burroughs considered the puzzle of how a boy raised by apes learns to speak English. Tarzan learns to write before he speaks and he learns French before he learns English. As the Burroughs adds more stories to the mythos, Tarzan will become quite the linguist.
The story is also a romantic tragedy with Burroughs revisiting the theme from Outlaw of Torn where the rival for the affection of the heroine gives up his claim thinking that she is better off with his rival.

It isn’t a flawless book but it is raw imagination and the forging of a modern myth. It has the exuberance of a new author playing with ideas that had marginally been explored before. It is also Burroughs finding his rhythm, his style setting the tone for things to come.