Edgar Rice Burroughs

Edgar Rice Burroughs was an American novelist born on September 1, 1875, in Chicago, Illinois. He created the jungle hero Tarzan and the Martian adventurer John Carter, and he is widely credited with helping to establish the modern pulp adventure novel.

Burroughs was the son of a Civil War veteran and businessman. He attended the Michigan Military Academy and served briefly in the United States Cavalry in Arizona before being discharged for a heart condition. Through his thirties he drifted through a series of unsuccessful jobs, including pencil-sharpener wholesaler and railroad policeman, while reading the pulp magazines of the day.

In 1911 he wrote his first story, Under the Moons of Mars, which appeared serially in The All-Story in 1912 and introduced John Carter of Mars. Later that year he completed Tarzan of the Apes, the tale of an English child raised by great apes in the African jungle. Tarzan became a worldwide phenomenon, spawning two dozen sequels, comic strips, radio serials, and a long series of films starting with the 1918 silent Tarzan of the Apes.

Burroughs incorporated himself in 1923, one of the first American authors to do so, and founded the town of Tarzana, California, on land he bought from newspaper publisher Harrison Gray Otis. During World War II he served as one of the oldest United States war correspondents in the Pacific. He died of a heart attack at his home in Encino, California, on March 19, 1950.

The name Edgar comes from the Old English Eadgar, composed of the elements ead meaning wealth or fortune and gar meaning spear, traditionally interpreted as wealthy spear. He used this masculine name throughout his writing life.