The Mucker

[14], 414, [12] pages. Illustrations. Publisher's corrective label adhered to copyright page. The dust jacket is in a plastic sleeve. Tape marks/reside from where dust jacket was tape to boards and adjacent endpapers. Canaveral Press was an Authorized publisher of cloth-bound editions of Burroughs works. The Mucker was Burroughs' own tour de force of adventure writing. It includes elements of the gangster novel, piracy, desert island adventures, a prize-fighting sequence, Western action, and more. all blended with incredible skill and vigor into on of the most breath-taking, swashbuckling, rip-roaring romps in all of literature. Author Richard A. Lupoff placed it at fourth place on a reading list of essential Burroughs novels in his 1965 book Master of Adventure: The Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs. Lupoff calls the novel "a most remarkable technical achievement" and states that "In a single book it is virtually a catalog of the pulps." Edgar Rice Burroughs (September 1, 1875 March 19, 1950) was an American writer, best known 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. The Mucker is a novel by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs. It was originally formed by two stories: "The Mucker", begun in August 1913 and published by All-Story Weekly in October and November 1914; and "The Return of the Mucker", begun in January 1916 and published by All-Story Weekly in June and July 1916. The book version was first published by A. C. McClurg on 31 October 1921. From January 1922 to August 1939, Methuen (UK) published a version of The Return of the Mucker under the title The Man Without a Soul. In 1917, Burroughs wrote a third Mucker story entitled The Oakdale Affair featuring the Return of the Mucker sidekick, Bridge. Billy Byrne is a low class American born in Chicago's ghetto. He grows up a thief and a mugger. "Billy was a mucker, a hoodlum, a gangster, a thug, a tough." He is not chivalrous nor kind, and has only meager ethics - never giving evidence against a friend or leaving someone behind. He chooses a life of robbery and violence, disrespecting those who work for a living. He has a deep hatred for wealthy society. He trains as a prizefighter but cannot stop drinking. When falsely accused of murder, he flees to San Francisco and is shanghaied aboard a ship. Enforced sobriety, brutal ship's discipline and productive work improves him. The ship's secret mission is soon enacted - the hijacking of a specific yacht to take a millionaire's daughter, Barbara Harding, for ransom. Billy Byrne brutally beats her suitor, Billy Mallory, leaving him for dead. "He knew that she looked down upon him as an inferior being. She was of the class that addressed those in his walk of life as 'my man.'" After Barbara confronts him and calls him a coward, a change begins in Billy Byrne. He saves the life of one kidnapper, Theriere, rather than letting him be washed overboard, though he cannot fathom his own reasons. After a terrible storm, the ship is damaged and only makes it to land with Billy's help at the wheel. He rescues Barbara from the wreck and brings her ashore. Barbara is kidnapped by headhunters descended from medieval Japanese. Byrne and Theriere race to rescue her from the daimyo's hut in the middle of the village, but Theriere is fatally wounded in the escape. Billy protects Barbara from the jungle for weeks while his own wounds heal. After realizing he's in love with her, he agrees to let her teach him h. …