 Edgar Rice Burroughs was born in Chicago on September 1st, 1875. His father, George Tyler Burroughs, was a Civil War veteran and now a successful businessman. Major Burroughs and his wife Mary had five other boys besides Edgar, but two of the children died in infancy, leaving Edgar the youngest of the family.
In 1911, Burroughs decided to write a full-blown novel, and the tale he wrote was as far removed from the life of a pencil sharpener wholesaler as one could possibly imagine. This flight of fancy, entitled Dejah Thoris, Martian Princess, was so exotic that Burroughs was worried that editors might think he was a little touched in the head. So he submitted the story under a pseudonym, Normal Bean, a joke indicating that his head was indeed screwed on the right way.
In submitting his manuscript to All-Story magazine he found luck the first time out: editor Thomas Metcalf liked the tale and offered Burroughs 400 dollars, an extravagant sum. The story, renamed Under the Moons of Mars, was serialized from February to July of 1912. Burroughs wound up being renamed as well: his pseudonym was changed to Norman Bean. (When this story appeared in book form it received its final title, A Princess of Mars; both Normal and Norman were abandoned in favor of the author's real name.)
By the time of the last installment of "Under the Moons of Mars" Burroughs had completed his third novel. The second one, The Outlaw of Torn, was rejected by Metcalf, but the third novel was a little trifle called Tarzan of the Apes.
Burroughs was now a bona fide full-time writer. But Tarzan would earn Burroughs his greatest success. The year 1932 was ushered in with a scream, as MGM released the first sound Tarzan movie, "Tarzan the Ape Man" with the now legendary Johnny Weissmuller. Hollywood did not show a great deal of fidelity to Burroughs' original story, but the movie's success meant that the Tarzan books were selling better than ever.
But financial success was overshadowed by the problems in Burroughs' personal life, as he and Emma divorced in 1934. He married Florence Dearholt the following year and in 1940, with war raging in Europe, the couple decided to head further west to Hawaii.
With the war's end Burroughs returned to California and settled into a small home near Tarzana. He and Florence had divorced in 1942, so Ed devoted his final years to his children.
He died on March 19, 1950. His writings and characters had entertained three generations of readers and moviegoers. In the 1960s, thanks to a paperback boom, a new generation discovered the writings of Edgar Rice Burroughs.
And now, at the beginning of a new millennium, another generation has rediscovered Burroughs through Disney's animated classic Tarzan. [edit]
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