Happy Birthday Edgar Rice Burroughs!

Happy Birthday Edgar Rice Burroughs!  He was not successful in his various careers until Burroughs wrote his first story, “Under The Moons of Mars” in 1911.  This later became the novel, A Princess of Mars, published in 1917.  An incredible work of world building, Burroughs took what was thought to be the canals of Mars from Percival Lowell into peoples, languages, technology, flora and fauna!  Barsoom was realized in the brilliant John Carter (2012).  Daryl Sabara played the author in the film.  Burroughs next novel, Tarzan of the Apes (1912) created an iconic character.  This led to a series of twenty-four books and a lifetime of films from Tarzan of the Apes (1918), there was the 1966-1968 televisoin series, Tarzan starring Ron Ely, the Disney animated film, Tarzan (1999) which led to the Broadway musical in 2006, to The Legend of Tarzan (2016).  The original novel has literary depth and created images that I feel were only recreated on the comics page with Joe Kubert’s Tarzan, three volumes are in the Tarzan: The Joe Kubert Years collection, highly recommended!      

Burroughs moved with his family to California and in 1919, bought a ranch that he renamed Tarzana.  In 1930, the community that expanded from that neighborhood named it Tarzana, California!  Take that Hobbiton!  Burroughs revealed the hidden world of Pellucidar in At the Earth’s Core (1941).  In 1976, there was a British film adaptation starring Doug McClure as David Innes.  This was preceded by another Burroughs’ story which was on the island of Caprona, The Land That Time Forgot (1975) with a script co-written by fantasy author, Michael Moorcock. There was even a meeting of two worlds arranged by Burroughs with Tarzan at the Earth’s Core (1929). Burroughs explored more of the solar system with Carson Napier on another world, Venus called Amtor, in Pirates of Venus (1932).  Burroughs’ work ranges from adventure, sci fi, Westerns, and even historical fiction with The Outlaw of Torn (1914).  Edgar Rice Burroughs died in 1950, but his writings have made our Earth and the rest of the solar system a fantastic place!  “Och Ohem, Coh Tay, Wyess Barsoom!” Happy Birthday Edgar Rice Burroughs.  

#EdgarRiceBurroughs, #TarzanoftheApes, #JohnCarter, #AttheEarthsCore