Edgar Rice Burroughs

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Edgar Rice Burroughs bigraphy, stories - American novelist

Edgar Rice Burroughs : biography

September 1, 1875 – March 19, 1950

Edgar Rice Burroughs (September 1, 1875 – March 19, 1950) was an American writer, best known for his creations of the jungle hero Tarzan and the heroic Mars adventurer John Carter, although he produced works in many genres.

Death

After the war ended, Burroughs moved back to Encino, California, where, after many health problems, he died of a heart attack on March 19, 1950, having written almost 80 novels.Holtsmark, pp. 13–15.

Early life

Burroughs was born on September 1, 1875, in Chicago, Illinois (he later lived for many years in the suburb of Oak Park), the fourth son of businessman and Civil War veteran Major George Tyler Burroughs (1833–1913) and his wife Mary Evaline (Zieger) Burroughs (1840–1920). His middle name is from his paternal grandmother, Mary Rice Burroughs (1802-ca. 1870).Edmund Rice (1638) Association, 2010. Descendants of Edmund Rice: The First Nine Generations.Note: For a comprehensive treatment of the ancestry of Edgar Rice Burroughs, refer to Schneider, Jerry L.. 2004. The Ancestry of Edgar Rice Burroughs . 296pp. ISBN 978-1-4357-4972-6

Burroughs was educated at a number of local schools, and during the Chicago influenza epidemic in 1891, he spent a half year at his brother’s ranch on the Raft River in Idaho. He then attended the Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, and then the Michigan Military Academy. Graduating in 1895, and failing the entrance exam for the United States Military Academy (West Point), he ended up as an enlisted soldier with the 7th U.S. Cavalry in Fort Grant, Arizona Territory. After being diagnosed with a heart problem and thus ineligible to serve, he was discharged in 1897.

Some seemingly unrelated short jobs followed. Some drifting and ranch work followed in Idaho. Then, Burroughs found work at his father’s firm in 1899. He married childhood sweetheart Emma Hulbert in January 1900. In 1904 he left his job and found less regular work; some in Idaho, later in Chicago.

By 1911, after seven years of low wages, he was working as a pencil sharpener wholesaler and began to write fiction. By this time, Burroughs and Emma had two children, Joan (1908–1972), who would later marry Tarzan film actor James Pierce, and Hulbert (1909–1991).Holtsmark, p. 5. During this period, he had copious spare time and he began reading many pulp fiction magazines. In 1929 he recalled thinking that

Books on Edgar Rice Burroughs

  • Master of Adventure: The Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs by Richard A. Lupoff
  • Tarzan Forever: The Life of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Creator of Tarzan by John Taliaferro
  • Golden Anniversary Bibliography of Edgar Rice Burroughs by the Rev. Henry Hardy Heins
  • Tarzan Alive by Philip Jose Farmer
  • Burroughs’s Science Fiction by Robert R. Kudlay and Joan Leiby
  • Tarzan and Tradition and Edgar Rice Burroughs by Erling B. Holtsmark
  • Edgar Rice Burroughs by Irwin Porges
  • Edgar Rice Burroughs by Robert B. Zeuschner
  • The Burroughs Cyclopædia ed. by Clark A. Brady
  • A Guide to Barsoom by John Flint Roy

Notes

Personal life

Burroughs divorced Emma in 1934 and married the former actress Florence Gilbert Dearholt in 1935, the former wife of his friend, Ashton Dearholt, and Burroughs adopted the Dearholts’ two children. The couple divorced in 1942.Holtsmark, pp. 12–13.

At the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Burroughs was a resident of Hawaii and, despite being in his late 60s, he applied for permission to become a war correspondent. This permission was granted, and so he became one of the oldest war correspondents for the U.S. during the Second World War.

American film director Wes Anderson is Burroughs’ great-grandson.

The Science Fiction Hall of Fame inducted Burroughs in 2003.

Popular culture

  • In the video game Jurassic Park: Trespasser there is a statue of E. R. Burroughs, possibly as a reference to his novel The Land That Time Forgot.