Name: BURROUGHS, Edgar Rice Aged: 74
Born: September 1, 1875 Where: Chicago, Illinois
Died: March 19, 1950 Where: Encino, California
Cremated: Ashes buried Tarzana, CA.
Married: Emma Hulbert When: January 31, 1900 (div '34)
Married 2: Florence Gilbert Dearholt When: April 4, 1935

Edgar Rice Burroughs

"I write to escape . . . poverty."

Born to a respected Civil War officer and successful distiller, Edgar should have had a life as a successful businessman with military training. And it started that way, without financial worries, sent to the private schools of Chicago and then off to the Philip Academy in Andover, Mass. Something went wrong there and Edgar was expelled. Burroughs returned to the midwest and was placed in a military academy in Michigan. Eventually, Edgar joined the US Cavalry and was sent to Arizona. That didn't work out either, and with family intervention, Edgar gave up the military life, prematurely.

Marriage to a childhood sweetheart helped Edgar offset numerous, unsuccessful business ventures that seemed to have no end. At age 35, Burroughs tried his hand at writing fiction.

Burroughs first published story, "Under the Moon of Mars," appeared in 1911 in All-Story pulp magazine. The first Tarzan story appeared in 1912, and, in 1914, Tarzan of the Apes was published in novel form and would be the first of 25 Tarzan books. The John Carter of Mars stories also appeared very early in ERB's writing career but Tarzan, through popular acceptance, and then demand, controlled Edgar's future. Especially, after the movies began and Tarzan moved into the folk culture of the nation.

During WWII, Burroughs became a military reporter for the Los Angeles Times and, at 66, was the oldest war corrspondent in the Pacific theater.

[Editor's note. It has been argued that Burroughs is not a true science fiction writer. Those who keep the "true" logs will have to speak to that. Writers like Burroughs, Howard, and Lovecraft created entire writing genres in F&SF for others to follow and it doesn't matter that they did or did not not write pure (read "true") 'science' fiction. What matters is that the loss of any one of them would have diminished the field of Science Fiction, and diminished it considerably. Before his death Burroughs said, "If there is a hereafter, I want to travel through space and visit the other planets." Sounds like a science fiction writer to me, folks. GCW]

PEN NAMES: Norman Bean

BIBLIOGRAPHY: The Hillman collection here (great page) and/or mine here.

BIOGRAPHY: Edgar Rice Burroughs by Irwin Porges, 1975 BYU Press. Also try ERB List.

OBITUARY: The New York Times, Monday, March 20, 1950, p21

George C. Willick, 514 East Street, Madison, IN 47250