Edgar Rice Burroughs

In January 1900, Burroughs married his childhood love, Emma Centennia Hulbert, who traveled with him and supported him during his struggle for over 11 years. The couple had three children - Joan in 1908, Hulbert in 1909 and John Coleman in 1913.

He divorced Emma in 1934, and four months later, married actress and divorcee Florence Gilbert Dearholt, thus adopting her two kids. However, the relationship ended with a divorce in 1941, due to his increased alcoholism habits.

He died on March 19, 1950 at his home in Encino, California, of a heart ailment. His ashes were laid to rest at his corporation headquarters on Ventura Boulevard, under a black walnut tree.

Burroughs was born on September 1, 1875 in Chicago, Illinois, as the fourth son to Major George Tyler Burroughs, who served in the Union army during the Civil War, and Mary Evaline Zieger Burroughs.

He received his formal education at various public and private schools, due to the outbreak of various deadly diseases. He learnt Greek and Latin, and later English composition.

In 1891, when the influenza epidemic broke out, his parents sent him to Idaho, where two of his brothers, Harry and George, were running a ranch at the Raft River.

His parents called him back after six months and sent him to Philips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, where he was expelled after the first semester due to his rebellious acts against the existing curriculum.

To get him disciplined, his father sent him to Michigan Military Academy, Orchard Lake, in 1892, where he made another attempt to escape in the first year, but gradually found the atmosphere favorable and graduated in 1895.

After graduating, he worked as an instructor and assistant commandant where he taught geology, cavalry, and Gatling gun for a brief period.

He prepared for the United States Military Academy (West Point) entrance examination, but failed to clear and was hence, deployed in the ‘B’ Troop of the 7th US Cavalry at Fort Grant, Arizona Territory.

Just before being promoted to officer grade, he was diagnosed with a heart murmur during a routine medical check-up and discharged off his duties in 1897.

He opened a stationery store in Idaho, went to Snake River ranch to his brothers, joined his father in Chicago at the American Battery Company in 1899 and returned to his brothers’ gold dredging business, but felt dissatisfied.

In 1904, he went to Salt Lake City, Utah, and worked as a railroad policeman. He worked with Champlain Yardley Company in 1910 and System Service Bureau in 1912, but was heavily frustrated and depressed, and saw only failures.

His novel ‘Tarzan of the Apes’, a story about the son of an English nobleman abandoned and raised by apes in the African jungle, became a runaway hit.

Some of his fictional stories included ‘At the Earth’s Core’ (1922), ‘The Land That Time Forgot’ (1924), ‘The Eternal Savage’ (1925), ‘The Cave Girl’ (1925), ‘The War Chief’ (1927), ‘The Monster Men’ (1929), and ‘Pirates of Venus’ (1934).

In 1923, he became one of the first authors to launch his company, Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc. and print his own stories and books.