Edgar Rice Burroughs is a prolific 20th-century American author, popular for having written classics such as Tarzan of the Apes and The Princess of Mars.

Burroughs was born in Chicago in 1875 to a well-off family. This allowed him to be well-educated, attending several local schools. Burroughs was being set up for a military track and attended Phillips Academy, then the Michigan Military Academy. However, he failed his entrance exam for the United States Military Academy at West Point and ended up being enlisted as a soldier with the Seventh US Cavalry. Unfortunately, he had to be discharged only two years later after being diagnosed with a heart condition and declared unfit to serve.

After leaving the military, Burroughs took on several jobs, including a cowboy at a ranch in Idaho, an employee at a battery factory in Chicago, a manager at a mining company, an employee at a railroad company, and eventually, a salesperson.

Burroughs didn’t start to write until 1911. At this point, he was already married to his childhood sweetheart and had two children with her. Burroughs had enough spare time to write fiction and read pulp-fiction magazines. He wrote stories specifically with the pulp magazine market in mind. In 1912, his first story, Under the Moons of Mars, was serialized in The All-Story under the pseudonym Norman Bean. This serial started the Barsoom series, a series of novels set in an inhabited but decaying Mars. In 1917, the serial was published as a book, titled A Princess of Mars. The Barsoom series stars John Carter, a human from Earth transported to Mars, which is suffering from decreasing resources.

After the Barsoom series came Edgar Rice Burroughs’s most popular work to date, Tarzan of the Apes. The Tarzan series extended to a total of 24 novels. Tarzan tells the story of a feral human raised by apes in the African jungle. Tarzan was already popular at the time of its release, and Burroughs sought to capitalize on Tarzan’s popularity through different media, such as merchandise, comics, and films. This led to Tarzan becoming a cultural phenomenon and a popular literary icon to this day.

The popularity of his novels allowed Burroughs and his family to live comfortable lives. In the 1920s, Burroughs set up Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc., which is the estate that owns the trademark to the Tarzan name. He also became a pilot, bought a plane, and encouraged the rest of his family to learn how to fly.

During World War II, Burroughs applied for and became a war correspondent despite being in his 60s. Once the war was over, Burroughs lived the rest of his life in Encino, California. He died of a heart attack on March 19, 1950. At the time of his death, he had already written almost 80 novels.

In 2003, Edgar Rice Burroughs was inducted to the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.

Sources:

1.Edgar Rice Burroughs | Britannica

2.Edgar Rice Burroughs Biography | edgarriceburroughs.com

3.Edgar Rice BurroughsShort Bio | Tarzan.org

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