My Library -- Edgar Rice Burroughs ( Part One)

photo credit: https://alchetron.com/Edgar-Rice-Burroughs

A rather strange thing happened when I started researching my old papers for this post. I found that my current impression of my early relationship with Edgar Rice Burroughs’ works seems to be all wrong. From the photo of my ERB collection below – some 60 books (including at least half a dozen duplicates) – it would seem that I was a huge ERB fan back in the day. I can remember pouring over an Ace catalog (I used to get books from Ace by mail order) with a long list of ERB’s books. They had titles like The Pirates of Venus, and Lost on Venus, which, not knowing ERB at the time, I imagined them to be some sort of typical, Tom Corbett, Space Cadet, Revolt on Venus type of story. I ordered the Venus books, and from the list below, you can see that I loved them. But going over the various other lists of books that I read over the next five years, I don’t find any evidence of when I came to be a tremendous fan of ERB. I was authentically surprised by this.

My ERB Collection

Here’s my lists of ERB books I read from my “Science-Fiction Books I have Read” dated, 1/6/65.

Pirates of Venus E

Lost on Venus E

Carson of Venus E

Escape on Venus E (It seems that I was a big fan of the Venus series.)

Tanar of Pellucidar C

The Cave Girl C

Beyond the Farthest Star E

The Land That Time Forgot B

The Warlord of Mars B

The Mastermind of Mar C

A Fighting Man of Mars C

Clearly, outside of the Venus series (which I’ve not reread), ERB books were, at this stage, rather hit or miss affairs. There were no new ERB additions in the list I made in September of 1965. And it seems that I did not read even one ERB book in either 1966 or 1967, as I recorded every book I read during those years. Another list dated, March 1968, adds only The People That Time Forgot, and Thuvia, Maid of Mars to my ERB have read list. The only other “books I read” list dates from the years, 1970 &, 71. It show that I read A Princess of Mars with an “A” rating, and The Lost Continent, with a “B” rating in April 1971.

It would seem that I wasn’t much of a Burroughs fan at all, based on those lists. But then, how can I explain the ERB related material I still have, pictured below?

The “Barsooniam Bazaar” has a 1968 date. The Barsoomian, #14, a quarterly fan magazine ($2/year), is also copyrighted 1968. The Burroughs Bulletin,#18, the fan magazine of The Burroughs Bibliophiles ($3/year) also is dated 1968. All of this would seem to indicate that I was a pretty devoted fan of ERB by 1968.-- though not devoted enough to actually subscribe to these clubs. I’m cheap. But where are all the ERB books that inspired this interest in ERB? They are certainly not recorded in my records of the time.

From the dates of this material, I must have started collecting the bulk of my ERB books when Ace started reissued ERB again in 1968 & 1969. Many of my copies I own now, that I would’ve bought new are “G” series $.50 versions rather than the “F” series $.40 books from the early 1960’s. And since there is a blank span in my records of books I read, from March 1968 to 1970, this would seem to be the time frame when I got into ERB. The Lost Continent copy I have is stamped “9-69” giving some credence to this theory. And the “G” series books I own don’t have “Neldner’s Point Loomis” stamped on the inside, so they are not from the card shop that supplied me with most of my SF books prior to 1968. I started college in the fall of 1968, and, come to think of it, that “9-69” stamp on the book may have been the practice at the University Book Store. One other piece of evidence is that my Ace paperback version of Richard A Lupoff’s book, Edgar Rice Burroughs: Master of Adventure, came out in 1968. I’m guessing that my interest in ERB took hold in the summer of 1968. I may well have been rereading A Princess of Mars in 1971.

Image credit: https://recoverings.com/blog/the-ace-books-title-font-mystery/

That said, the hardcover books, and most of the Ace Tarzan books are books that I picked up second hand from charity rummage sales and such, whenever I came across them as an adult. While I’m not a big fan of Tarzan, I wouldn’t pass up a cheap ERB book, especially the Ace books with their Franzetta and Krendel Jr covers.. Of all the SF paperback covers I’ve seen in my life, I think the Frank Frazetta and Roy Krenkel Jr. covers for Ace’s ERB books are, collectively, the best speculative fiction covers ever. Period.

And that, I guess covers the nuts and bolts of how my Burroughs collection came to be.

But why do I have 60 Burroughs books on my shelves? Why did I at least look into joining the Burroughs societies? It’s not like I tried to join the Heinlein or Norton fan clubs. Did they have any? So what was it about Edgar Rice Burroughs that even today, makes him special in my mind?

Since this post is running long, and I have much more to say, I’ll answer those questions next time. So stay tuned for Part Two of My Library – Edgar Rice Burroughs

image credit:  https://fritzfreiheit.com/wiki/A_Princess_of_Mars

image credits Left: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Princess_of_Mars