Edgar Rice Burroughs, including the 1920 McClurg first printing of Tarzan the Untamed
Collectors chase the McClurg firsts. But the McClurg firsts aren't how Tarzan got into America's hands. That job fell to A. L. Burt and Grosset & Dunlap, the reprint houses that took McClurg's plates, printed them on thinner paper in cheaper cloth, and sold them for a fraction of the price. A McClurg first went onto a collector's shelf. A Burt went into a boy's bedroom and got read until the headcap frayed.
This group has both. Five early reprints cover the ape-man's origin, his return, the beasts, the jewels of Opar and the jungle tales of his boyhood. At the end of the row is the real thing: Tarzan the Untamed, McClurg, Chicago, April 1920, first printing. Tarzan takes on the German army in East Africa, and then the book swerves into Xuja, a lost city of lunatics. The plates are by J. Allen St. John, the artist who decided what Tarzan looked like. Every illustrator since, Frazetta included, has had to answer him.
Someone numbered these as they bought them: I, II, III, V, VI, VII. Number IV, The Son of Tarzan, never arrived. The Opar title page lists it among Burroughs's other books, which must have stung.
They're used and honestly worn: frayed spine ends, rubbed cloth, no jackets, old dried staining on the back of Jewels of Opar. The Untamed is missing one of its nine plates, with no sign it was ever bound in. Not a fine set but a well-read one, and that's the point.
The set: Tarzan of the Apes, The Return of Tarzan, The Beasts of Tarzan, Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar (A. L. Burt reprints); Jungle Tales of Tarzan (Grosset & Dunlap reprint); Tarzan the Untamed (A. C. McClurg, 1920, first edition, first printing).
Edgar Rice Burroughs, including the 1920 McClurg first printing of Tarzan the Untamed
Collectors chase the McClurg firsts. But the McClurg firsts aren't how Tarzan got into America's hands. That job fell to A. L. Burt and Grosset & Dunlap, the reprint houses that took McClurg's plates, printed them on thinner paper in cheaper cloth, and sold them for a fraction of the price. A McClurg first went onto a collector's shelf. A Burt went into a boy's bedroom and got read until the headcap frayed.
This group has both. Five early reprints cover the ape-man's origin, his return, the beasts, the jewels of Opar and the jungle tales of his boyhood. At the end of the row is the real thing: Tarzan the Untamed, McClurg, Chicago, April 1920, first printing. Tarzan takes on the German army in East Africa, and then the book swerves into Xuja, a lost city of lunatics. The plates are by J. Allen St. John, the artist who decided what Tarzan looked like. Every illustrator since, Frazetta included, has had to answer him.
Someone numbered these as they bought them: I, II, III, V, VI, VII. Number IV, The Son of Tarzan, never arrived. The Opar title page lists it among Burroughs's other books, which must have stung.
They're used and honestly worn: frayed spine ends, rubbed cloth, no jackets, old dried staining on the back of Jewels of Opar. The Untamed is missing one of its nine plates, with no sign it was ever bound in. Not a fine set but a well-read one, and that's the point.
The set: Tarzan of the Apes, The Return of Tarzan, The Beasts of Tarzan, Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar (A. L. Burt reprints); Jungle Tales of Tarzan (Grosset & Dunlap reprint); Tarzan the Untamed (A. C. McClurg, 1920, first edition, first printing).
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