Any discussion of Sword & Planet fiction needs to start with Edgar Rice Burroughs and his book A Princess of Mars. I discussed that series extensively — and also his other S&P series, the Carson of Venus books, and his Moon Maid trilogy, which is partially S&P — in Part I of this series.

But, of course, ERB wrote many other books that have no connection to S&P fiction. They are still very good stories, though, entertaining and worth discussing. I thought I’d cover some in my next series of posts.

Most  readers I know discovered ERB through the character of Tarzan. The first ERB I read was A Princess of Mars, but the second one was Tarzan Lord of the Jungle. The book was an old hardback, with no dust cover. The cover was generally brown with the title embossed on it. I found it among my sister’s books. She was the only other big reader in my family. I don’t know how she came upon it. I still remember some fifty+ years later the opening scene, with Tarzan dozing on the back of Tantor the elephant. And before long Tarzan finds a lost civilization of crusaders in deepest Africa. And there was swashbuckling.

[Click the images for Tarzan-sized versions.]

I’ve always liked best the Tarzan tales where he discovers a lost race. There were a lot of them in Africa, apparently. That copy of the book fell apart and I eventually replaced it with a paperback. When I started buying the Tarzan books I couldn’t afford to get them all at once, and I also picked up ones here and there from used bookstores or book sales. Most of the ones I found were from the Ballantine editions, many with great Boris Vallejo covers, which became my “mind’s eye” image of Tarzan.

Above I show the first 11 books in my collection. All but Jewels of Opar are from Ballantine, published between 1963 and 1973 it looks like. Covers are varied.

Here’s the list of cover artists.

Tarzan of the Apes; Charles Ren
The Return of Tarzan; Robert Abbett
Beasts of, Son of, Jungle Tales of; Neal Adams
Untamed, Terrible, Golden Lion, Ant Men; Boris Vallejo
Lord of the Jungle; Robert Abbett

My copy of Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar was published in 1919 by A. L. Burt Company. It lacks a dust cover, but above is a picture I took off the internet of what it apparently looked like. The beautiful cover is by J. Allen St. John (1872 – 1957), who was an incredible artist.

Burroughs wrote 26 books about Tarzan, but typically only 24 are counted as part of the main sequence. The two odd numbers out are The Tarzan Twins, which I have, and Tarzan and the Tarzan Twins with Jad-Bal-Ja The Golden Lion, which I’ve never seen. These are novellas written for young readers. They were published separately but were collected together at one point, although I can’t find a copy of that publication.

The copy of The Tarzan Twins that I have is from Wildside Press with a cover by Douglas Grant. It’s the only ERB book I don’t like and doesn’t even seem like ERB to me. ERB’s work was already accessible to young readers. Most people I know read them pretty young, so for him to “try” to write down to kids just didn’t work — at least to me.

Overall, the Tarzan series is certainly not my favorite among ERB’s work anyway. They’re actually fairly low on my list of ERB favorites, although — don’t get me wrong — still very good. A ranking of my favorite series would be John Carter, Moon Maid, Carson of Venus, Land that Time Forgot, and Pellucidar, with Tarzan coming after that. Some of my favorite standalones would be The Outlaw of Torn, The Mad King, and I Am A Barbarian.

The Tarzan tales were almost certainly influenced by Rudyard Kipling’s jungle book tales of Mowgli, the wild boy of the forest — which in turn was influenced by some true reports from the mid-1800s of children in India being raised by wolves. ERB may have been directly aware of those same tales as well, and likely knew of the “Wild Boy of Aveyron,” who, around 1800, was found living in the wilds in France. The French feral child was named Victor by one of his “rescuers.” Unlike Tarzan, he never really learned to speak, although he apparently understood some language.

Above and below are the remaining Tarzan book pictures from my collection. The Ace copy of Lost Empire with the Frazetta cover that looks like it was inspired by Roy Krenkel Jr’s work is a real prize. I also have an Ace copy of Tarzan at the Earth’s Core, which also ties into ERB’s Pellucidar series, with a wonderful Frazetta cover.

The rest of my regular series are all Ballantine, with the following cover artists.

Invincible, Triumphant, City of Gold, Lion Man, Leopard Men; Neal Adams
Quest, Forbidden City, Magnificent, Foreign Legion, Madman, Castaways; Boris Vallejo

My second copy of Tarzan and the Golden Lion is from Grosset & Dunlap and clearly looks targeted toward younger readers with that cover (see above) — which is pretty cringeworthy for moderns. Not sure when it was published or who the cover artist might be.

Tarzan and the Lost Safari is adapted from the Tarzan movie of that same name. It was published by Whitman and doesn’t list an author, although I’ve seen Frank Castle’s name attached to it. I’ve seen this book for sale as by “Edgar Rice Burroughs.” It’s not. It’s closer to the movie Tarzan than to ERB’s creation. I didn’t find it very entertaining.

I personally don’t believe that ERB has been well served by the film and TV industries. I may be in the minority here but I find the early Tarzan movies to be virtually unwatchable. They seem to have very little to do with ERB’s characterization of Tarzan. The first Tarzan movie I actually liked was Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, starring Christopher Lambert. It still wasn’t the Tarzan I knew from the books but they made an effort to capture some of the character’s origins. I also liked most of the 2016 Legend of Tarzan, with Alexander Skarsgard, who I believe captured the essence of the character better than any previous Tarzan.

I generally liked the John Carter of Mars film, although they made changes that weren’t needed, but my favorite ERB adaptations are definitely a couple of B-movies starring Doug McClure. I’m talking about The People that Time Forgot, and The Land that Time Forgot. I’ve given these — especially the first one — frequent rewatches. Although the special effects are pretty awful by modern standards, the spirit of ERB’s stories shine through, the mystery and the exotic.

Of course, I loved the trilogy that spawned these movies — The Land that Time Forgot, The People that Time Forgot, and Out of Time’s Abyss. I thought Doug McClure did a good job with the character of Bowen Tyler, who becomes the first American to set foot on Caprona, a lost world near Antarctica where time seems to have stopped and dinosaurs still survive. There’s also a deep mystery about how things “evolve” on Caprona, though I won’t give it away.

Above are the three copies I have, all from Ace. Frazetta did the cover for The People while the other two are by Roy Krenkel, Jr. I’m also including a map of Caprona featured in An Atlas of Fantasy.

Other installments in this series include:

The Fiction of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Part I: Sword and Planet
The Fiction of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Part II: Tarzan and The Land That Time Forgot
The Fiction of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Part III: The Westerns and The Mucker
The Fiction of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Part IV: The Hollow Earth and Pellucidar

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Charles Gramlich administers The Swords & Planet League group on Facebook, where this post first appeared. His last article for Black Gate was The Fiction of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Part I: Sword and Planet.