Tarzan of the Apes

While on a mission for the British government John Clayton Lord of Greystoke and his young wife are marooned on the west Africa coast. Lady Alice Clayton gives birth to a baby boy and lives for a year before passing away of an unspecified illness. John Clayton is killed soon after by a band of marauding apes. A she-ape by the name of Kala takes the young Lord Greystoke as a replacement for an infant she's recently lost.[return][return]The young Englishman is raised by the apes as one of their own and given the name Tarzan. Tarzan is at a loss in terms of size and stength when compared to his ape playmates, but he makes use of his intelligence and agility to survive and gain status in the group. [return][return]One day Tarzan discovers the cabin his father built and where he had lived with his parents. Unaware that the skeletons in the cabin are those of his parents, Tarzan explores and becomes interested in the books within the cabin. Somehow (rather dubiously) he teaches himself to both read and write English fluently with the help of the books in the cabin.[return][return]Tarzan becomes a hero to the apes by killing some of their enemies such as lions and gorillas, he also has the members of a local village of cannibal natives thinking he is a forest god. Eventually Tarzan becomes the leader of the tribe, after defeating the previous leader in single combat, he leaves the tribe following the death of Kala at the hands of the cannibal tribe.[return][return]Not long after this Tarzan sees some newcomers to the west African coast; treasure hunters. Amongst this group are the eccentric American scientist; Professor Archimedes Q. Porter, his associate and friend Samuel Philander, the British Lord (and coincidentally Tarzan's cousin) William Cecil Clayton, the negro maid Esmeralda and Professor Porter's beautiful and spirited daughter Jane.[return][return]Tarzan becomes entranced by the beautiful white woman and largely because of this he assists the party and eventually rescues Jane when she is abducted by one of the apes. Jane is with Tarzan, falling in love with him, when a French ship comes to the aid of the small group and one of their party is captured by the cannibals. After depositing Jane back on the beach Tarzan goes back into the jungle and rescues the French officer; Paul D'Arnot.[return][return]D'Arnot contracts a fever, which Tarzan nurses him through and upon discovering that the wild man can read and write English, but not speak it, teaches him French. By the time D'Arnot and Tarzan arrive back at the beach, their ship has sailed.[return][return]Determining that Tarzan wishes to learn to live as a man, mainly for the purpose of pursuing Jane and winning her love, D'Arnot takes the jungle raised man to a colonial outpost. Tarzan becomes civilized and goes to the United States to be with Jane. Unfortunately, believing that they could never be together, Jane has accepted a proposal of marriage from another. Tarzan and Jane coming together is the subject of a sequel.[return][return]Burrows' treatment of the black natives gives a lot to be desired (when looking back at it from our late 20th century eyes), but I found him to be less offensive than Defoe in "Robinson Crusoe". Crusoe considered Man Friday to have no redeeming features (he's black so he's sub human) even though without Friday, Crusoe would have died - being white and "civilised" gave him no skills to live in the real world. Burrows treats the African natives differently - ok, they're black, they live in the jungle, but they have a very evolved social structure, are efficient and awe-some warriors and can work their environment to their advantage.[return][return]Burrows also has an interesting (dare I say homo-erotic) way of describing Tarzan especially when he is in his element of travellng through the jungle or fighting. Unfortunately he tends to repeat this multiple times in later books so the novelty of his prose does soon wane.

I've read a dozen Tarzan books, all the Pelucidar, Venus, and Mars series, and a number of other classics by Burroughs. Amazing that he wrote several of these with a dictaphone going back a hundred years ago!

I absolutely love this book series, it is filled with nonstop adventures always twist and turns.