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Styles: Short Fiction, Bestsellers, Born in Chicago, Early 20th Century, 19th Century, Sci-Fi, Pop Culture, Really Famous, Romance, Adventure, Novelists

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Edgar Rice Burroughs
 
1875 - 1950

Born in Chicago in 1875, Edgar Rice Burroughs failed at being a teacher, soldier, policeman, cowboy, store clerk, and gold miner before finding his true calling as a writer of adventure stories and novels. Burroughs submitted his first piece to "All Story" magazine because he was desperate for money to feed his family, but by 1914 he was earning $20,000 per year from writing. He wrote shelves full of adventure novels, taking his readers into outer space as well as exotic jungles. Some of the stories he published were so far-fetched that he was afraid readers would think he was out of his mind, so to protect his image, he wrote under the pseudonym "Normal Bean." By far his most famous creation was the legendary Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, a human orphan raised by animals in the jungle. Critics find his work shallow, with tendencies toward prejudice and even fascism, but concede that Burroughs rarely failed at his professed goal of entertaining readers. Burroughs married twice, and had three children.

Selected Works:
(ERB has written literally hundreds of titles; aside from the most prominent classics, most are usually out of print, though some do come back into print from time to time. Check Amazon for the latest titles.)

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