Tarzan of the Apes [Paperback]

Edgar Rice Burroughs (Author), Maura Spiegel (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2006

Tarzan of the Apes, by Edgar Rice Burroughs, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics:

All editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works.

 

In 1888 Lord and Lady Clayton sail from England to fill a military post in British West Africa and perish at the edge of a primeval forest. When their infant son is adopted by fanged “great anthropoid apes,” he becomes one of the most legendary figures in all of literature—Tarzan of the Apes. Within the society of speechless primates, Tarzan wields his natural influence and becomes king. Self-educated by virtue of his parents’ library, Tarzan discovers true civilization when he rescues aristocratic Jane Porter from the perils of his jungle. Their famous romance, which pits Tarzan’s lifetime of savagery against Jane’s genteel nature, has captivated audiences for nearly a century.
 
First published in 1914, Tarzan of the Apes is the first of several works by Edgar Rice Burroughs that delineate Tarzan’s manifold and amazing feats. Despite his reputation as a pulp writer, Burroughs spins an exhilarating yarn detailing the laws of the jungle and the intricate dilemmas of the British gentry as he examines the struggle between heredity and environment.

 

Maura Spiegel teaches literature and film at Columbia University and Barnard College. She is the co-author of The Grim Reader and of The Breast Book: An Intimate and Curious History. She co-edits the journal Literature and Medicine.

Editorial Reviews

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

From Maura Spiegel's Introduction to Tarzan of the Apes

 

Tarzan of the Apes was a runaway success when it first appeared. Before he knew it, Burroughs had created a Tarzan industry. He struck deals for daily Tarzan newspaper comic strips and movies (and, later, radio shows), and he licensed Tarzan statuettes, Tarzan bubble gum, Tarzan bathing suits, and an assortment of other merchandizing ventures. Burroughs would write twenty-three Tarzan sequels, and estimates of his lifetime sales range between 30 and 60 million books.

With all the enthusiasm came detractors, those who said Tarzan was unoriginal, his hero just a variation on Kipling’s Mowgli, who, in The Jungle Books, is adopted as an infant by wolves. Kipling himself was of this opinion, writing in his autobiography, “If it be in your power, bear serenely with imitators. My Jungle Book begot Zoos of them. But the genius of all genii was the one who wrote a series called Tarzan of the Apes. I read it, but regret I never saw it on the films, where it rages most successfully. He had jazzed the motif of the Jungle Books, and, I imagine, had thoroughly enjoyed himself.”

In some respects, Tarzan is a distant descendant of frontier legends such as Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, and James Fenimore Cooper’s character Hawkeye. Tarzan follows the tradition of frontier stories in which white heroes achieve their full manhood by emulating the ways of Indian hunters and warriors, of “savages.” In Tarzan of the Apes, the frontier is replaced by the jungle, and the “savages” are apes and Africans instead of Indians. Like the pioneer heroes, Tarzan symbolically merges the skill and ferocity of the savage with the superior mental and moral acuity attributed to the “civilized” man. Richard Slotkin has argued that the false values of “the metropolis,” be it European culture or urban modernity, can be purged by the adoption of a more primitive and natural condition of life, by a crossing of the border from civilization to wilderness. But adopting the ways of the beast or “savage” does not mean becoming one; it means you know how to turn his own methods against him.

Critic Leslie Fiedler described Tarzan of the Apes as “that immortal myth of the abandoned child of civilization who survives to become Lord of the Jungle.” This basic plot has been adapted and readapted in several dozen film versions. There are many Tarzans; there are noble savages, simple and gentle guardians who protect the jungle and its creatures from arrogant but frightened jungle-intruders, and there are fierce fighting Tarzans, whose primitive existence is poignantly harsh and brutal. Specific features of the Tarzan that Burroughs created, however, are commonly omitted from adaptations; rarely is he represented as the son of an English lord and lady who teaches himself to read and who demonstrates, through his demeanor and skill at killing, his Anglo-Saxon “racial superiority” and his inherited aristocratic taste and sense of honor. These elements of the story don’t have the kind of appeal they once did. As early as the first sound film adaptation in 1932, Hollywood democratized Tarzan, taking away his title and his British heritage. Over the years the representations of Tarzan’s Africa have varied as well. In many of the films, including the 1999 Disney animated version, no Africans appear at all, nor does Tarzan employ his method of killing by hanging, an evocation of lynching that, dismayingly, Burroughs seems to have been untroubled by. Because we want our heroes to embody our principles, Tarzan continues to evolve.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Barnes & Noble Classics (April 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1593082274
• ISBN-13: 978-1593082277
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 6.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #504,898 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars When the Big Apes Raise a Lord!, January 17, 2010

By 

Maximiliano F Yofre "Maxi" (Buenos Aires, Argentina) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Tarzan of the Apes (Kindle Edition)

Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950) was a prodigy of imagination. He started his writer career quite late; his first work was published in 1912. From that point on a ceaseless flow of imaginary worlds & heroes poured from his pen: John Carter of Mars, Carson Napier of Venus, David Innes and Abner Perry on Pellucidar at Earth's center and the most famous of them all Tarzan of the Apes.


Tarzan's world is Africa. But an extraordinary Africa populated with apes more intelligent than any known ones and in later adventures with a plethora "lost cities", "ant-men" or whatever suit ERB in order to deliver a fast paced adventure.

As other reviewers, of this same book in other editions, point out do not expect "politically correct" tales, they are the product of a society still torn by racial prejudices.
Another assumption that closely follows this is: "superior traits" are inherited directly and a Lord will always be a Lord no matter what the circumstances.
The reader may assume all this adventures occurs in an "alternate reality" that have some common traits with our world such as the ones depicted by Guy Gavriel Kay for example.

Now you'll be ready to enjoy the original story of Tarzan as it was delivered by ERB, free from Hollywood changes or comic's stereotypes.
A couple of English nobles are abandoned by a mutinous crew in the coast of Africa where they barely survive.
Adversity proves to be more than what they may endure and both die leaving an infant that is miraculously adopted by Kala an anthropoid that has lost her baby-ape.
Protected by her, Tarzan starts a life struggle to conquer a space among the over towering brutes.
His natural intelligence combined with a strengthening body allows him to survive and in due time lead the ape tribe.
ERB ability renders all this astounding fates credible: Tarzan learns to read and write all by himself; Tarzan defeats a Gorilla with his father's knife; Tarzan helps a group of marooned white people and fell in love with Jane; Tarzan...continue delivering one prowess after other... and you'll believe it.

I read "Tarzan of the Apes" at my teens and continue reading many of his 23 following adventures, borrowing volume after volume from a nearby library.
When I grow up and gain economic independence I bought and kept this book and some more Tarzans volumes.

I warmly recommend this series to any anyone who is fond to read unending adventures in a magic world.
If after reading Tarzan's stories you still want more from ERB try the Martian series, they are almost as good as this one.

Reviewed by Max Yofre.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars So much better than the movies!, January 22, 2011

By 

Yuri Rredner - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Tarzan of the Apes (Kindle Edition)

If you are expecting Tarzan to be an inarticulate meat-head who never gets past a three-year-old's grasp of English (and never wears more than a loin cloth), you will be pleasantly surprised by the real McCoy, as originally conceived by ERB. Having grown up on Hollywood's version of the legend, I was amazed to meet the original character: a very intelligent, three-dimensional person who defies efforts to pigeon-hole him. From the very start, when he teaches himself how to read English, and then learns fluent French before even leaving the jungle, I was continually wondering why no one ever took advantage of this complexity in the movies. Tarzan of Greystoke came the closest, but even that pales next to the portrayal in the book. I also loved that Jane is a southern belle: another surprise (and ironic, with the Greystoke movie's dubbing-over of Andie MacDowell's [southern-accented] voice). At the climax of the book, you find Tarzan driving a car and other 'civilized' activities, but he still ends up swinging on vines through the forest... in a three-piece suit! Images like that had me cracking up, and makes this book such a fun read. If you would like a quick and entertaining adventure story that turns your pre-conceived notions upside-down, then definitely give this a try!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Pot-Boiler Yet, April 17, 2011

By 

Aarwin (Rancho Cordova, CA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Tarzan of the Apes (Kindle Edition)

This, the first of the Tarzan series, sets the stage and ground rules for all subsequent Tarzan novels. When Tarzan's aristocratic and ship-wrecked English parents perish on the coast of Africa, the baby Tarzan is nurtured and raised by Kala, the mighty she-ape. If you are looking for literature, this is not for you. However, if what you seek is old-fashioned adventure, excitement, bloody battles and unlikely coincidences that advance a fast-moving and easily read plot, this pot-boiler is for you. As it was for me. Begin at the beginning, and read the original inspiration for all the movies about the Lord of the Jungle.