Edgar Rice Burroughs Biography Quotes 1 Report mistakes

Early Life and Family
Edgar Rice Burroughs was born on September 1, 1875, in Chicago, Illinois, to George Tyler Burroughs and Mary Evaline (Zieger) Burroughs. His father, a Civil War veteran who became a businessman, and his mother, who kept the family together through frequent moves and reversals, provided a stable if unpretentious upbringing. Chicago in the late nineteenth century was a place of rapid growth and invention, and the energy of the city left an imprint on the boy who would later become one of America's most widely read storytellers. Burroughs grew up in a family that valued perseverance, humor, and a practical approach to life, values that later informed both his tenacity during lean years and his shrewdness once success arrived.

Education and Early Work
As a student, Burroughs was restless and imaginative rather than studious. He spent time in several schools and eventually attended the Michigan Military Academy in Orchard Lake, where he later returned as an instructor. Ambitious for a military career, he sought admission to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point but did not pass the entrance examinations. Still eager to serve, he briefly enlisted in the U.S. Cavalry in the Arizona Territory. The romance of the frontier held great appeal for him, but health issues curtailed his service, and he returned to civilian life.

In the years before he found his voice as a writer, Burroughs tried a patchwork of jobs in Chicago and the American West. He worked in sales and office positions, tried ranching, and did odd jobs that paid the bills but did not satisfy his curiosity or creativity. Those years acquainted him with the rhythms of adventure and struggle. They also gave him a close view of the aspirations of ordinary Americans, which would later help him shape heroes who were brave, capable, and fundamentally decent.

Breakthrough in the Pulps
Burroughs's fortunes changed when he turned to the popular pulp magazines of the early twentieth century. Convinced he could write stories as good as those he was reading, he tried his hand at fiction. His first major success, a planetary romance serialized in 1912 as Under the Moons of Mars and published under the byline Norman Bean, introduced readers to the world of Barsoom and the soldier-hero John Carter. The tale, later published in book form as A Princess of Mars, blended scientific speculation with swashbuckling adventure and set the pattern for many of his later works.

That same year, he wrote Tarzan of the Apes, the story of an orphan raised among great apes who masters both the jungle and the complexities of civilization. Serialized in The All-Story, the novel made a sensation. Editors like Thomas Newell Metcalf helped bring Burroughs's early submissions to print, and the pulps owned by publisher Frank Munsey gave him a fast-growing readership. By the mid-1910s, Burroughs was working at a remarkable pace, expanding the Barsoom series and launching new cycles including Pellucidar, set at the earth's core, and the far-planet adventures of Amtor.

Family Life and Personal Ties
In 1900, before his literary breakthrough, Burroughs married Emma Centennia Hulbert. Their partnership endured the years of uncertainty when he was taking whatever work he could find and the sudden ascendancy when Tarzan and other series began to sell. They had three children: Joan, Hulbert, and John Coleman. Family life was central to Burroughs's routine, and the children would later become entwined with their father's creative enterprises. Joan married actor James Pierce; together they brought Tarzan to the radio, with Pierce voicing Tarzan and Joan playing Jane, strengthening the character's presence in American homes.

As his career and circumstances changed, so did his personal life. Burroughs and Emma divorced in 1934. The following year he married Florence Gilbert Dearholt, a former silent film actress and the ex-wife of his friend and film associate Ashton Dearholt. That marriage ended in divorce in 1942. Throughout, the ties between his work and the people around him remained strong: his family, friends in the publishing and film worlds, and the actors, illustrators, and editors who helped translate his imagination into mass entertainment.

Tarzan and Popular Culture
Tarzan became one of the most recognizable fictional figures in the world. The character leapt from the pulps to books, comics, radio, and motion pictures. Early silent films starred Elmo Lincoln as Tarzan and introduced the hero to audiences far beyond the reading public. In the 1930s and 1940s, Johnny Weissmuller embodied the character in a string of successful talking pictures, imprinting a cinematic image that persisted for generations. The visual identity of Tarzan and many of Burroughs's other heroes was sharpened by artists such as J. Allen St. John, whose dramatic illustrations graced early editions, and by newspaper strip pioneers like Hal Foster and, later, Burne Hogarth, who gave Tarzan dynamic life in panels read by millions.

Business Acumen and California Years
Burroughs was more than a popular storyteller; he was a shrewd manager of his own intellectual property. In 1923 he established Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., a move that made him one of the first American authors to incorporate to control the licensing and distribution of his creations. He understood that characters like Tarzan and John Carter were not just stories but enduring brands. Contracts, comic strips, films, and later radio shows were carefully overseen, ensuring that the reach of his work expanded while he retained oversight and financial stake.

In 1919, he moved his family to Southern California and purchased a ranch in the San Fernando Valley. He named the estate Tarzana, and the surrounding community eventually adopted the name. The California years marked a productive period. In addition to continuing the Tarzan and Barsoom series, he created the Pellucidar novels, beginning with At the Earth's Core, and wrote The Land That Time Forgot and other standalone adventures that showcased his lean, rapid storytelling and his fascination with lost worlds, hidden civilizations, and heroic tests of character.

World War II and Later Years
Burroughs relocated to Hawaii in 1940. When the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred on December 7, 1941, he was in Honolulu. Determined to contribute, he became a war correspondent, at an age when most men had retired from public life. Accredited in the Pacific theater, he reported on military life and scenes from bases and ships, writing for readers back home with the same clarity and urgency that drove his fiction. The experience added a sober note to his later writings and gave him a new sense of purpose during a time of global upheaval.

After the war he returned to California. Though his health was uneven, he continued to write and to supervise his company's affairs. He encouraged new media adaptations, recognizing that the stories that had first excited pulp readers could thrive in modern formats. He died on March 19, 1950, in California, closing a career that had lasted nearly four decades and produced dozens of novels and countless licensed adaptations.

Themes, Craft, and Influence
Burroughs's fiction combined speed, clarity, and a firm belief in the hero's capacity for self-improvement. He favored swift plots, cleanly sketched conflicts, and landscapes that were both exotic and morally legible. His heroes were often outsiders mastering alien worlds: John Carter on Mars, David Innes at the earth's core, Carson Napier on Venus, and, of course, Tarzan bridging the jungle and the drawing room. While not a scientist, he was an agile borrower of contemporary ideas about exploration and technology, using them as springboards for adventure rather than for technical speculation.

His influence on popular culture is difficult to overstate. Tarzan became a global icon, while the Barsoom novels inspired generations of readers and creators to imagine life on other worlds. Editors like Thomas Newell Metcalf and publishers under Frank Munsey gave him his start; artists such as J. Allen St. John, Hal Foster, and Burne Hogarth helped define his visual legacy; actors like Elmo Lincoln, Johnny Weissmuller, and James Pierce carried his characters into theaters and living rooms. The corporate framework of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. ensured that his creations remained visible and protected, a model later emulated by other writers and estates.

Legacy
Edgar Rice Burroughs's life demonstrates how a determined storyteller, with practical business sense and a keen feel for the pulse of his audience, could transform magazine tales into a far-reaching cultural phenomenon. He built fictional worlds that readers returned to again and again, and he surrounded himself with family, collaborators, and interpreters who amplified those worlds in print, on film, over the airwaves, and in the daily comics. More than seventy years after his death, his characters remain in circulation, his company still administers his works, and his name remains linked to an imaginative frontier where courage, ingenuity, and wonder carry the day.

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