3.5(4)
Tarzan

Tarzan of the Apes

Tarzan of the Apes is a novel written by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the first in a series of books about the title character Tarzan. It was first published in the pulp magazine All-Story Magazine in October 1912. So popular was the character that Burroughs continued the series into the 1940s with two dozen sequels. For the novel's centennial anniversary, Library of America published a hardcover edition based on the original book in April 2012 with an introduction by Thomas Mallon.

The novel tells the story of John Clayton III. John and Alice (Rutherford) Clayton II, Lord and Lady Greystoke of England, are marooned in the western coastal jungles of equatorial Africa in 1888. In September 1889 their son John Clayton III is born. At one year old his mother dies, and soon thereafter his father is killed by the savage king ape Kerchak. The infant is then adopted by the she-ape Kala.

Clayton is named "Tarzan" ("White Skin" in the ape language) and raised in ignorance of his human heritage.

As a boy, feeling alienated from his peers due to their physical differences, he discovers his true parents' cabin, where he first learns of others like himself in their books. Using basic primers with pictures, over many years he teaches himself to read English, but having never heard it, cannot speak it.

Upon his return from one visit to the cabin, he is attacked by a huge gorilla which he manages to kill with his father's knife, although he is terribly wounded in the struggle. As he grows up, Tarzan becomes a skilled hunter.

Later, a tribe of black Africans settle in the area, and Tarzan's adopted mother, Kala, is killed by one of its hunters. Avenging himself on the killer, Tarzan begins an antagonistic relationship with the tribe, raiding its village for weapons and practicing cruel pranks on them. They, in turn, regard him as an evil spirit and attempt to placate him. Some time after, Tarzan finds he has excited the jealousy of Kerchak, the ape leader, who finally attacks him.


  1. Le Faucon Rouge (cycle de la Lune n° 3)

    Edgar Rice Burroughs

    book
  2. Le Naufragé de la Préhistoire : (suivi de : Retour à la Préhistoire)

    Edgar Rice Burroughs

    book
  3. Roi malgré lui : (roman)

    Edgar Rice Burroughs

    book
  4. Pellucidar

    Edgar Rice Burroughs

    book
  5. 100 Obras Maestras de la Literatura Universal : Explorando la diversidad literaria a lo largo de los siglos

    Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Gustave Flaubert, Franz Kafka, Lewis Carroll, Sigmund Freud, Henrik Ibsen, Charles Dickens, Honoré de Balzac, Mark Twain, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Schiller, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Oscar Wilde, Robert Louis Stevenson, Edgar Allan Poe, William Shakespeare, Dante Alighieri, Giovanni Boccaccio, Bram Stoker, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Jack London, Henry James, Louisa May Alcott, Victor Hugo, Arthur Conan Doyle, Joseph Conrad, Jane Austen, José Rizal, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Herman Melville, Jonathan Swift, Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, Benito Pérez Galdós, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Daniel Defoe, Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Virginia Woolf, Washington Irving, Juan Valera, Horacio Quiroga, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Charles Baudelaire, Wilkie Collins, William Makepeace Thackeray, Voltaire, Apuleius, Leopoldo Alas, John Milton, José Martí, Lope de Vega, Emilio Salgari, Francisco de Quevedo, Rubén Darío, Antonio Machado, José Zorrilla, Tirso de Molina, Emilia Pardo Bazán, Fernando de Rojas, L. Frank Baum, H.G. Wells, J.M. Barrie, H. Rider Haggard, H.P. Lovecraft, Seneca, Hans Christian Andersen, Friedrich Nietzsche, Mary Shelley, Baltasar Gracián, Sófocles, Sun Tzu, Fiódor Dostoyevski, Antón Chéjov, León Tolstoi, Tomás Moro, San Agustín, Nikolái Gógol, Julio Verne, Homero, Platón, Alejandro Dumas, Aristóteles, Hermanos Grimm, Jorge Isaacs, Ignacio De Loyola, Nicolás Maquiavelo, Miguel Cervantes, Teresa de Jesús, Alejandro Dumas hijo, Mijaíl Bakunin, Miguel De Unamuno, Duque de Rivas, Ramón María del Valle-Inclán, Federico García Lorca, Gibrán Jalil Gibrán

    book
  6. 100 Obras Maestras de la Literatura Universal

    Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Gustave Flaubert, Franz Kafka, Lewis Carroll, Sigmund Freud, Henrik Ibsen, Charles Dickens, Honoré de Balzac, Mark Twain, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Schiller, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Oscar Wilde, Robert Louis Stevenson, Edgar Allan Poe, William Shakespeare, Dante Alighieri, Giovanni Boccaccio, Bram Stoker, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Jack London, Henry James, Louisa May Alcott, Victor Hugo, Arthur Conan Doyle, Joseph Conrad, Jane Austen, José Rizal, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Herman Melville, Jonathan Swift, Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, Benito Pérez Galdós, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Daniel Defoe, Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Virginia Woolf, Washington Irving, Juan Valera, Horacio Quiroga, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Charles Baudelaire, Wilkie Collins, William Makepeace Thackeray, Voltaire, Apuleius, Leopoldo Alas, John Milton, José Martí, Lope de Vega, Emilio Salgari, Francisco de Quevedo, Rubén Darío, Antonio Machado, José Zorrilla, Tirso de Molina, Emilia Pardo Bazán, Fernando de Rojas, L. Frank Baum, H.G. Wells, J.M. Barrie, H. Rider Haggard, H.P. Lovecraft, Seneca, Hans Christian Andersen, Friedrich Nietzsche, Mary Shelley, Baltasar Gracián, Sófocles, Sun Tzu, Fiódor Dostoyevski, Antón Chéjov, León Tolstoi, Tomás Moro, San Agustín, Nikolái Gógol, Julio Verne, Homero, Platón, Alejandro Dumas, Aristóteles, Hermanos Grimm, Jorge Isaacs, Ignacio De Loyola, Nicolás Maquiavelo, Miguel Cervantes, Teresa de Jesús, Alejandro Dumas hijo, Mijaíl Bakunin, Miguel De Unamuno, Duque de Rivas, Ramón María del Valle-Inclán, Federico García Lorca, Gibrán Jalil Gibrán

    book
  7. Les Hommes synthétiques de Mars (Cycle de Mars n° 9)

    Edgar Rice Burroughs

    book
  8. John Carter de Mars (Cycle de Mars n° 11)

    Edgar Rice Burroughs

    book
  9. Black Cat Weekly #76

    Hal Charles, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Lester del Rey, John S. Carroll, Phyllis Ann Karr, Grace Livingston Hil, Fritz Leiber, A.L. Sirois, Camille Minichino, Frank Kane

    book
  10. Carson de Vénus (Cycle de Vénus, n° 3)

    Edgar Rice Burroughs

    book
  11. 50 Masterpieces you need to read

    Louisa, Jane Austen, Joseph Conrad, D. H. Lawrence, George Eliot, Leo Tolstoy, James Joyce, Charles Dickens, Bram Stoker, Oscar Wilde, Honoré de Balzac, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Anne Brontë, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Lewis Carroll, Willa Cather, Miguel de Cervantes, E. E. Cummings, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Daniel Defoe, Arthur Conan Doyle, Alexandre Dumas, Gustave Flaubert, Henry James, Victor Hugo, Icarus

    book
  12. Les Envahisseurs venus de la Lune (cycle de la Lune n° 2)

    Edgar Rice Burroughs

    book