The Birth of Burroughs

American author Edgar Rice Burroughs was born on this day in 1875. Often considered to be one of the seminal adventure authors of the modern era, he was also, arguably, one of the first authors of thriller fiction.

According to The Writer’s Almanac, Burroughs read Charles Darwin’s Descent of Man and became fascinated “by the idea that human beings were related to apes. He began to wonder what might happen if a child from an excessively noble, well-bred family were somehow left in the jungle to be raised by apes.” The result of that thinking, of course, was Tarzan of the Apes, “which filled an entire issue of All-Story magazine in October of 1912.”

Nor did he rest with All-Story: in all, Burroughs penned more than 30 novels and stories featuring the Ape Lord. And though his vast collection of Tarzan tales would have been enough--more than enough--for many other authors, for Burroughs it was only the very tip of the jungle.

Burroughs wrote nine novels set in his fictional hollow earth world of Pellucidar, including 1929’s Tarzan at the Earth’s Core. As well, there were a dozen books in the Barsoom series, which was a fictionalized version of Mars. (Why he needed a fictional version of an unvisited planet is not clear to me, but there you have it.) Several books set on Venus and Earth’s moon didn’t require this bit of dissemblance.

From the “holy cow that’s wild but I should have guessed it” department: Tarzana, California, is in fact named for Burroughs’ renowned creation. And the Burroughs Crater on Mars was named in honor of the writer.

Burroughs died in Encino, California, on March 19, 1950, after having written more than 40 novels.