Edgar Rice Burroughs

Edgar Rice Burroughs (September 1, 1875 – March 19, 1950) was an American author best known for creating the character Tarzan of the Apes and the Barsoom series of Martian adventures featuring John Carter. Born in Chicago to a prosperous family, Burroughs experienced a peripatetic early career that included military service, ranching in Idaho , and prospecting for gold before turning to writing as a means of financial support.

Burroughs's breakthrough came in 1912 with the publication of "Under the Moons of Mars" (serialized as A Princess of Mars ) under a pseudonym in The All-Story magazine, followed swiftly by Tarzan of the Apes , which established his formula of fast-paced tales blending science fiction, fantasy, and exotic adventure. Over his lifetime, he produced 26 Tarzan books, 11 Barsoom novels, and dozens of other works across genres, amassing sales in the tens of millions and enabling him to build a personal fortune that funded business ventures, including founding Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., to manage his intellectual properties. His stories, characterized by heroic protagonists confronting primal challenges in untamed wildernesses or alien worlds, emphasized self-reliance, physical prowess, and unyielding resolve, influencing subsequent pulp fiction, comic strips, films, and even space exploration nomenclature.

In his later years, Burroughs served as a war correspondent for the Los Angeles Examiner during World War II at age 66, reporting from the Pacific theater, and continued writing until his death from a heart attack. Though contemporary critics sometimes decry elements of his narratives as reflecting early 20th-century racial and cultural attitudes, Burroughs's enduring appeal lies in the escapist vitality of his imaginative worlds, which have sustained adaptations across media for over a century.

Edgar Rice Burroughs was born on September 1, 1875, in Chicago , Illinois , to George Tyler Burroughs, a Civil War veteran who later became a successful distillery salesman and businessman, and Mary Evaline Zeiger Burroughs. He was the youngest of four surviving sons, with two other siblings having died in infancy. The family enjoyed relative prosperity in Chicago's mercantile circles, though Burroughs later reflected on an erratic early education disrupted by frequent school changes due to disease outbreaks in the city.

As a child, Burroughs attended several public and private schools in Chicago, including the Brown School and the Harvard School, where he studied Greek, Latin, and English composition from an early age. His academic performance was inconsistent, marked by a lack of dedication to studies rather than inability, as he showed aptitude in languages but struggled with sustained focus. In 1891, amid a severe influenza epidemic in Chicago, he was sent to his brothers' cattle ranch in Idaho for health reasons, an experience that exposed him to ranching life but also highlighted his youthful restlessness.

Following a brief and unsuccessful stint at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts —where he flunked out after one semester due to poor application to academics—Burroughs was enrolled by his father at the Michigan Military Academy in Orchard Lake, Michigan. There, he fared better in extracurriculars, serving as quarterback and captain of the football team while developing skills as a trick rider and marksman , though he attempted to desert in his first year. He graduated from the academy in 1895, his first formal completion of schooling, amid ongoing challenges with discipline and scholarly pursuits.

Edgar Rice Burroughs married his childhood sweetheart, Emma Centennia Hulbert, on January 31, 1900, in Chicago, Illinois. The couple had three children: Joan Pierce (née Burroughs, born 1908, died 1972), Hulbert Burroughs (born 1909, died 1991), and John Coleman Burroughs (born 1913, died 1979).