THE TARZAN NOVELS
Edgar Rice Burroughs (ERB) wrote over one hundred novels and short stories between 1911 and 1940.  Despite his profuse output and undisputed popular appeal he was ostrasiced by the literary community because he chose to operate within the realm of pulp fiction.  He wrote to entertain and, unapologetically, to earn a living.  His greatest creation, Tarzan, the savage ape-man, appeared in twenty-four Tarzan novels, two "juvenile" Tarzan stories, and one unfinished Tarzan manuscript.   ERB's writing style was frequently criticised for the over reliance on pure coincidence to drive the plot, the tiresome reoccurrence of some themes, the stereotypical and caricaturish nature of some of his figures, and the lack of polish and control of language (Atamian & Boerst).  He was, however, without a doubt, the most widely read American author of the first half of the twentieth century.  His works appeared in over thirty languages and conservative estimates credit him with selling over thirty million books (generous estimates say sixty million).  All of Ed's stories, especially the Tarzans, address the theme of the survival of the fittest.  ERB was a product of his times and like so many of his contemporaries he believed in a heirarchy of race and class and was very proud of his nearly pure Anglo-Saxon lineage (Taliafero & Porges).  He gave to the world a noble hero who had mastery over a brutal and primal world.  Tarzan was an absolutist with unflinching standards who knew right from wrong and was willing to sacrifice himself for the cause he had devoted himself to (Atamian).  In this respect Burroughs writing spoke to ordinary people living in an ordinary world in the very same way that the hero myths have always touched the hearts of men and women.   Tarzan inspired them to be more than they are.  And the fact that the tales were delivered in the exhilarating, pulse-quickening language of a master story teller kept readers coming back for more, year after year.  It should be stressed for the uninitiated, however, that the savage, violent and richly imaginative world of the Tarzan novels is a far cry from the formulaic, mellower approach of the family-focused Tarzan films.
 
The list below contains the twenty-four Tarzan stories written by ERB and the book produced from the unfinished manuscript after his death.  It does not contain the two juvenile novels, The Tarzan Twins, which was published in 1927, and Tarzan and the Tarzan Twins with Jad-Bal-Ja, the Golden Lion, published in 1936.  These works are of a different nature to those listed here.  The dates used are the date that the work was first published as a book, not the date of its first appearance in a magazine.  These pages attempt to give some idea of the circumstances in which ERB wrote each of the Tarzan stories.  The vivid plot descriptions are taken word-for-word from the back cover blurbs of the Ballantine paperbacks.  I definitely couldn't have improved on these gems.
1914   TARZAN OF THE APES
1915   THE RETURN OF TARZAN
1916   THE BEASTS OF TARZAN
1917   THE SON OF TARZAN
1918   TARZAN AND THE JEWELS OF OPAR
1919   JUNGLE TALES OF TARZAN
1921   TARZAN THE UNTAMED
1921   TARZAN THE TERRIBLE
1923   TARZAN AND THE GOLDEN LION
1924   TARZAN AND THE ANT MEN
1928   TARZAN, LORD OF THE JUNGLE
1929   TARZAN AND THE LOST EMPIRE
1930   TARZAN AT THE EARTH'S CORE
1931   TARZAN THE INVINCIBLE
1932   TARZAN TRIUMPHANT
1933   TARZAN AND THE CITY OF GOLD
1934   TARZAN AND THE LION MAN
1935   TARZAN AND THE LEOPARD MEN
1936   TARZAN'S QUEST
1938   TARZAN AND THE FORBIDDEN CITY
1939   TARZAN THE MAGNIFICENT
1947   TARZAN AND THE FOREIGN LEGION
1964   TARZAN AND THE MADMAN
1965   TARZAN AND THE CASTAWAYS
1995   TARZAN - THE LOST ADVENTURE

SOURCES
• The Origin of Tarzan by Sarkis Atamian, 1997, Publication Consultants
• Edgar Rice Burroughs, Creator of Tarzan by William J Boerst, 2000, Morgan Reynolds
• Tarzan Forever by John Taliafero, 1999, Simon & Schuster
• Edgar Rice Burroughs: The Man Who Created Tarzan by Irwin Porges, 1975, Brigham Young University Press
COVERS
• Unidentified artist cover from the 1951 British Goulden paperback edition is from my personal collection
• All other cover images were pilfered from eBay auction items

Tarzan© is the property of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., Tarzana CA.
This independent, fan-based analysis of the Tarzan material is copyright © 2002-2007 Paul Wickham
This page updated August 2006