Then came his epiphany, his life-changer. Burroughs was born in Chicago in 1875, the fourth son of a wealthy businessman.īut he did serve for a year with the Seventh US Cavalry, Custer’s outfit massacred 20 years later, and claimed to have “chased Apaches but never caught any” before being discharged through ill health, going on to work as gold miner, railway cop, caretaker and accountant. Here was a man who found it hard to separate fact from fiction and for proof, here’s how he described his upbringing to his readers: “I was born in Peking at the time that my father was military advisor to the Empress of China and lived there in the Forbidden City until I was 10 years old.” A tall tale to rank with Tarzan’s upbringing by apes. Now a century on, yet another Tarzan movie is in the works which means that Tarzan films have been with us almost as long as the 40-odd books written by Edgar Rice Burroughs. It was a sensation, selling a million copies in a year and it signalled the birth of an immortal. The “true” hundredth because although the noblest savage of 'em all appeared earlier in an obscure pulp magazine, no-one took much notice until the book Tarzan of the Apes was published in 1914. Instead, we celebrate the first true 100th birthday of the first superhero – Tarzan. Another 100th anniversary today but this time nothing to do with war or the birthday of our fabled Welsh word-spinner.
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