Edgar Rice Burroughs books in order

Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950) was an American writer of adventure and science fantasy fiction, the creator of Tarzan and of John Carter of Mars, whose stories first appeared in The All-Story magazine in 1912.

He was born in Chicago on 1 September 1875. He served in the 7th US Cavalry until 1897, when a heart condition led to his discharge, and spent the following years in a string of jobs, including cowboy on his brother's Idaho ranch, gold-dredge manager, railway worker and pencil-sharpener wholesaler. He began writing fiction around 1911. His first story, "Under the Moons of Mars", ran in The All-Story from February to July 1912 under the pen name Norman Bean. It introduced John Carter and began the Barsoom series. Tarzan of the Apes followed in The All-Story from October 1912. He went on to write the Pellucidar and Venus series and many Tarzan sequels.

In 1919 he bought the Californian ranch that became Tarzana, and in 1923 he founded Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. to control his work. Living in Hawaii in 1941, he witnessed the Pearl Harbor attack and became an accredited war correspondent for United Press. He died of a heart attack in Encino, California, on 19 March 1950 and is buried in Tarzana.

For collectors. A. C. McClurg of Chicago published the first four Tarzan novels as books, beginning with Tarzan of the Apes in 1914, and issued A Princess of Mars, the book form of his first story, in 1917.