Tarzan of the Apes - Softcover

Burroughs, Edgar Rice

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141036532 ISBN 13: 9780141036533

Publisher: Penguin Classic, 2008

Synopsis

Abandoned to his fate when his English parents die in the African jungle, a baby boy is rescued and reared by a loving ape foster mother. Conquering the savage laws of the wilderness, Tarzan grows into a mighty warrior and becomes leader of his tribe of apes until he encounters, for the first time, his own kind - humans. An expedition of white treasure hunters has entered his jungle kingdom, accompanied by the beautiful Jane Porter. Tarzan's primitive heart is struck and he determines to become civilized in order to win her. But will the charms of this charming and cultured young woman overcome when the spirit of his wild nature beckons?

About this title

Review

First published in 1914, Edgar Rice Burroughs's romance has lost little of its force over the years--as film revivals and TV series well attest. Tarzan of the Apes is very much a product of its age: replete with bloodthirsty natives and a bulky, swooning American Negress, and haunted by what zoo specialists now call charismatic megafauna (great beasts snarling, roaring, and stalking, most of whom would be out of place in a real African jungle). Burroughs countervails such incorrectness, however, with some rather unattractive representations of white civilization--mutinous, murderous sailors, effete aristos, self-involved academics, and hard-hearted cowards. At Tarzan's heart rightly lies the resourceful and hunky title character, a man increasingly torn between the civil and the savage, for whom cutlery will never be less than a nightmare.

The passages in which the nut-brown boy teaches himself to read and write are masterly and among the book's improbable, imaginative best. How tempting it is to adopt the ten-year-old's term for letters--"little bugs"! And the older Tarzan's realization that civilized "men were indeed more foolish and more cruel than the beasts of the jungle," while not exactly a new notion, is nonetheless potent. The first in Burroughs's serial is most enjoyable in its resounding oddities of word and thought, including the unforgettable "When Tarzan killed he more often smiled than scowled; and smiles are the foundation of beauty."

From the Publisher

This book is a large print version using a minimum of 16 point type in a 6 by 9 inch size and perfect bound - a paperback. As with all Quiet Vision print books, it use a high grade, acid free paper for long life.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Classic
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0141036532
• ISBN 13: 9780141036533
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 256