Edgar Rice Burroughs (September 1, 1875 – March 19, 1950) was an American writer, recognized for his prolific output in the adventure, science fiction, and fantasy genres. Best known for creating the characters Tarzan (who appeared in a series of twenty-four books by him) and John Carter (who was a recurring character in a series of eleven books), he also wrote the Pellucidar series, the Amtor series, and the Caspak trilogy.
Tarzan was immediately popular, and Burroughs capitalized on it in every possible way, including a syndicated Tarzan comic strip, films, and merchandise. Tarzan remains one of the most successful fictional characters to this day and is a cultural icon. Burroughs's California ranch is now the center of the Tarzana neighborhood in Los Angeles, named after the character. Burroughs was an explicit supporter of eugenics and scientific racism in both his fiction and nonfiction; Tarzan was meant to reflect these concepts.
Burroughs was born on September 1, 1875, in Chicago, Illinois, the fourth son of Major George Tyler Burroughs, a businessman and Civil War veteran, and his wife, Mary Evaline (Zieger) Burroughs. Edgar's middle name is from his paternal grandmother, Mary Coleman Rice Burroughs.
Burroughs was of English and Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry, with a family line that had been in North America since the Colonial era. Through his Rice grandmother, Burroughs was descended from settler Edmund Rice, one of the English Puritans who moved to Massachusetts Bay Colony in the early 17th century. He once remarked: "I can trace my ancestry back to Deacon Edmund Rice." The Burroughs side of the family was also of English origin, having emigrated to Massachusetts around the same time. Many of his ancestors fought in the American Revolution. Some of his ancestors settled in Virginia during the colonial period, and Burroughs often emphasized his connection with that side of his family, seeing it as romantic and warlike.
Burroughs was educated at a number of local schools then at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, and then the Michigan Military Academy. He graduated in 1895, but he failed the entrance exam for the United States Military Academy at West Point, so instead he enlisted with the 7th U.S. Cavalry in Fort Grant, Arizona Territory. However, he was diagnosed with a heart problem and thus ineligible to serve, so he was discharged in 1897.
After his discharge, Burroughs worked at a number of different jobs. During the Chicago influenza epidemic of 1891, he spent half a year at his brother's ranch on the Raft River in Idaho as a cowboy. He drifted afterward, then worked at his father's Chicago battery factory in 1899. He married his childhood sweetheart, Emma Hulbert (1876–1944), in January 1900.
In 1903, Burroughs joined his brothers, Yale graduates George and Harry, who were by then prominent Pocatello area ranchers in southern Idaho and partners in the Sweetser-Burroughs Mining Company, where he took on managing their ill-fated Snake River gold dredge, a classic bucket-line dredge. The Burroughs brothers were also the sixth cousins once removed of famed miner Kate Rice who in 1914 became the first female prospector in the Canadian North. Journalist and publisher C. Allen Thorndike Rice was also his third cousin.
When the new mine proved unsuccessful, the brothers secured for Burroughs a position with the Oregon Short Line Railroad in Salt Lake City. Burroughs resigned from the railroad in October 1904.
By 1911, around age 36, after seven years of low wages as a pencil-sharpener wholesaler, Burroughs began to write fiction. By this time, Emma and he had two children, Joan (1908–1972), and Hulbert (1909–1991). During this period, he had copious spare time and began reading pulp-fiction magazines. In 1929, he recalled thinking that:
"[...] if people were paid for writing rot such as I read in some of those magazines, that I could write stories just as rotten. As a matter of fact, although I had never written a story, I knew absolutely that I could write stories just as entertaining and probably a whole lot more so than any I chanced to read in those magazines."
In 1913, Burroughs and Emma had their third and last child, John Coleman Burroughs (1913–1979), later known for his illustrations of his father's books.
In the 1920s, Burroughs became a pilot, purchased a Security Airster S-1, and encouraged his family to learn to fly.
His daughter Joan married Tarzan film actor James Pierce. She starred with her husband as the voice of Jane during 1932–1934 for the Tarzan radio series.
Burroughs divorced Emma in 1934 and in 1935 married the former actress Florence Gilbert Dearholt, who was the former wife of his friend Ashton Dearholt, with whom he had co-founded Burroughs-Tarzan Enterprises while filming The New Adventures of Tarzan. Burroughs adopted the Dearholts' two children. He and Florence divorced in 1942.
Burroughs was in his late 60s and was in Honolulu at the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Despite his age, he applied for and received permission to become a war correspondent, becoming one of the oldest U.S. war correspondents during World War II. This period of his life is mentioned in William Brinkley's bestselling novel Don't Go Near the Water.
After the war ended, Burroughs moved back to Encino, California, where after many health problems, he died of a heart attack on March 19, 1950, having written almost 80 novels. He is buried in Tarzana, California, US.
At the time of his death he was believed to have been the writer who had made the most from films, earning over US$2 million in royalties from 27 Tarzan pictures.
The Science Fiction Hall of Fame inducted Burroughs in 2003.