Marcia of the Doorstep: A Romance [Hardcover]

Edgar Rice Burroughs (Author), Ned Dameron (Illustrator)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Donald M Grant; Deluxe edition (December 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 188041841X
• ISBN-13: 978-1880418413
• Product Dimensions: 15.7 x 9.6 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,359,380 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of Burroughs's Best, September 7, 2005

By 

Spencer Smith (Salt Lake City, UT) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Marcia of the Doorstep: A Romance (Hardcover)

Of the four "reviews" previously recorded, one hadn't even read the book, two are from the same person and have nothing to do with the story, and the remaining review focused only on Burroughs's well-known condescension toward anyone who is not Anglo-Saxon. Perhaps someone should actually review the story, which for some reason I thought was the purpose of this forum.

To get past the one valid point raised thus far, there is no defense for Burroughs's attitudes towards Blacks and Jews (and Germans and Japanese and on and on...), other than the hackneyed statement that he was a man of his time, only more enthusiastic about it than most. Specifically regarding Jews in this book, there are two identified, both lawyers--one is a criminal, and the other is honorable and ethical. That seems fairly balanced to me. Allowing that writers may express their opinions as they see fit, that readers don't have to agree with the writers they read (I don't agree with a number of Burroughs's views, including his attitudes about societal strata and race), and that readers don't have to read writers they don't agree with, let's move past that and talk about the story.

I've been a Burroughs fan since my teens (less so as I've aged and have looked for more depth, but there's no denying the pure escape fun of a Burroughs novel). I thought I owned every book he published. Lately I read a biography about Burroughs (Taliaferro's "Tarzan Forever"--I recommend it), did some searching on the internet and found this novel published for the first time in just the last few years.

I frankly disagree with "A Reader"--this is one of Burroughs's best. It's also his longest novel. The main reason it wasn't published in his lifetime (this came up in the biography) was that all the publishers wanted was Tarzan and more Tarzan, with some Pellucidar and Mars mixed in for good measure. No one took him seriously as a writer of contemporary fiction--without strange new worlds and fantastic creatures and lost cultures, it wasn't Burroughs.

"Marcia of the Doorstep" has all the Burroughs regulars--the handsome men and beautiful women, the heroes and villains, adventure on the high seas, mystery and missing documents, and true love (in the Princess Bride sense). The two things that set this novel above a lot of his others are:

1. The autobiographical component--the characters of Mr. and Mrs. Sackett are obviously meant to be caricatures of Burroughs and his (first) wife. It was nice to have read the biography before reading this.

2. The insights into early Twentieth Century American culture--a majority (not all) of the venues of the story would be familiar to Burroughs as he lived in them, and he steps through these locales with ease. In his "fantastic" stories, he has to build the unfamiliar world for the reader out of his imagination or his readings. In this book, it is assumed the reader knows the locales, which I believe aids the flow of the story.

All in all, an enjoyable read. Some parts of the plot are contrived, as you would expect from Burroughs, in order to align everything for the climax and finale. Characterization is strong--while there is some dropping of people into stereotypical societal buckets, the main characters all have their strengths and weaknesses. And, perhaps best of all, it's not as obvious how everything will (or won't) work out in the end, adding to the suspense. A nice instance of serendipity, to find a "new" book by an author dead for 55 years.

My only real knock would be on the editing. The intro makes a point about preserving the historicity of the writing by keeping Burroughs's original punctuation, but the repeated uses of punctuation that would be marked as wrong by any grade school teacher become a bit annoying after a while. (And yes, my use of the term "Burroughs's" in this review is the correct usage of the apostrophe.)

If you like Burroughs, you'll like this.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Historic Burroughs, March 13, 2000

By 

Matthew Gore (Memphis, TN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Marcia of the Doorstep: A Romance (Hardcover)

The production values of all of Donald Grant's publications are excellent. That, and the historic value of any previously unpublished manuscript to the Burroughs fan or student make this a must have for the true collector. However, this is not the place to start reading Burroughs. Casual readers should look to the most often reprinted titles first!

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Exceptional quality printing, February 1, 2000

By 

Mtkaat - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Marcia of the Doorstep: A Romance (Hardcover)

I have to admit - I haven't read this yet, but the real Burroughs fan may be concerned with one other thing, the production of the book. It is excellent. The paper is high quality, the illustrations are very nice, and the binding is actually sewn. It is very rare these days to find a novel that doesn't have the individual signatures cut apart and held to the spine by glue. Books made that way will not last as long as a properly constructed and sewn book. Now I'll try to find the time to sit down and read the book and find out why ERB was never able to get it published - and why he chose not to publish it himself.