Edgar Rice Burroughs
Author · 1875–1950

Edgar Rice Burroughs

Edgar Rice Burroughs was an American writer (1875–1950). Born in Chicago.

Our catalogue lists 50 books by Edgar Rice Burroughs, mostly classic fantasy, adventure fiction and Victorian science fiction. They span 1912 to 1976. The most-read is A Princess of Mars (1912). 46 titles are free to read on Project Gutenberg, and 42 have free LibriVox audiobooks.

Books by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Awards

Biography

Edgar Rice Burroughs was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of a businessman. During the Chicago influenza epidemic in 1891, he spent half a year on his brothers' ranch on the Raft River in Idaho. He attended the Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts and then the Michigan Military Academy, from which he graduated in 1895. He failed the entrance exam for West Point, and so became an enlisted soldier with the 7th U.S. Cavalry in Fort Grant, Arizona Territory. He was discharged in 1897, having been found ineligible for service due to a heart problem. He drifted, working odd jobs at ranches across Idaho, then came to work at his father's firm in 1899. He married Emma Centennia Hulbert in 1900. In 1904 he left his job and found less regular work, ending up back in Chicago. He held several low-wage jobs for the next seven years, then, while working as a pencil sharpener wholesaler, he began to write fiction in 1911. He began reading pulp fiction magazines and decided to aim his fiction toward getting published in these magazines. His first published story, "Under the Moons of Mars," was serialized in The All-Story magazine in 1912. He began writing full-time and his first published novel, Tarzan of the Apes, was published in October of 1912. In 1919 he purchased a ranch north of Los Angeles, California which he named "Tarzana," a name which was later adopted by the citizens of the community that sprang up around the ranch. In 1923 he set up Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. and began printing his own books.

Authors like Edgar Rice Burroughs