The First and Only Weekly Online Fanzine Devoted to the Life and Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs Since 1996 ~ Over 15,000 Webpages and Webzines in Archive

Volume 0366

ERB ECLECTICA 2000.07.07
MOTES & QUOTES No. 24
Part of the ERBzine Eclectica Series



Note: The Links shared here were posted in July 2000
Some of the off-site, non-ERBzine links may be no longer active.

1. A VIRTUAL TOUR AND SCRAPBOOK OF THE ERB COLLECTION AT U of L

Posts to Jim Thompson's ERB listserver: erbcof-l@APSU01.APSU.EDU

June 5, 2000
Dear Bill & Sue-On:
Thanks for the fifteen web sites on the ERB Memorial Scrapbook a la Hillman. All the pictures and captions were superb!  FOR MY NEXT BOUT WITH the computer, I will check out the ECOF site photos.  I am impressed with your digital camera capabilities. Keep up the good work. Cheers!  Tublat

June 8, 2000
I watched your web links on May 31  and again on June l, and they are GREAT!  I even moused-in the captions and thought they were fine.  You are a multitude!!  Cheers!   TUBLAT

George T. McWhorter,Curator
Burroughs Memorial Collection
University of Louisville Library
Phone: (502) 852-8729 Fax: (502) 852-8734

Our George McWhorter Tribute Site
https://www.erbzine.com/mcwhorter/

June 22 1944

Master Danton Burroughs
Tarzana, California.

Dear Danton:

Just two years ago today your brother arrived when our world
did not look too bright.  But you come in on the crest of a
victorious wave that is carrying us and our allies to success-
ful ending of World War II much sooner than we had expected.

If your generation shows more intelligence than past generat-
ions, perhaps there will be no more wars.  But that is almost
too much to expect.  However, there is a chance.  You have been
born into the greatest nation the world has ever known.  Keep it
great.  Keep it strong.  If you do, no country will dare to go to
war if we say no.

Put this letter away and read it June 21st 1965.  You will be of
age then.  See then if the politicians have kept your country great
and strong.  If they haven't, do something about it.  If I'm around
I'll remind you.

            Good luck my boy,
                    Your Grandfather,

                                (sig) Edgar Rice Burroughs

January 19, 1988

Dear Mr. McWhorter:

Thanks very much for sending along the letter that you had in your collection from Edgar Rice Burroughs.  And, you're right, it still has relevance today.  It reminds me of the responsibility that we have to make this word a safer and better place for generations to come.  He had a lucky grandson, didn't he, to have much wisdom imparted at such an early age.  I hope that, looking on, Edgar Rice Burroughs knows that this country is still keeping strong and that the generation coming *** will keep the spirit that he conveyed ***.

Sincerely,

(sig) Ronald Reagan

Mr. George T. McWhorter
Ekstrom Library
University of Louisville
Louisville, Kentucky  40292

This week's photo quiz:

MOON MEN

A belated  Honourable Mention Major Award goes out to Ghak, the hairy Pellucidarian who tracked down another JoN camera in our  Find the Jekkak's Camera Contest.  He has sent in a photo to verify the find  ~ captured at the Hachland Hall fireplace in Clarksville, TN. Kudos, Ghak!

6. Part 3: PAINT THE PRINCESS

The first entrant in our Paint the Princess contest is ERB fan artist, Richard Carsley
Grab your crayons and keep 'em coming gang.

From the Far East: Special Disney Tarzan release on two discs ~ VCD 5.0: BEST 0125
Features: Video Compact Disc Format ~ Chinese and English language ~ THX ~ dts sound

Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine British edition no. 140, September 1964  Tarzan Jungle Detective  by Edgar Rice Burroughs plus An over-sized ERB magazine that I picked up  on a newstand during one of our performing tours in England in the late '70s

Hi Bill
Great pictures Bill, we as fans of ERB have longed for these pictures, you have done a great brilliant job, keep it up there are many out here who love his work and the many artists who have worked to bring his dreams from the page.

I have been a fan since about 1985, when one grey dull day I was pacing out my boredom when my eyes happened to glance at a small pile of second books that my mother had mailed to me. Not really in the right mood I thought I would have another look at the books. I discovered this worn and rather tatty copy of "Gods of Mars" published by the English Library. I suddenly realised after the first few pages, that I had been transported to another wonderful world full of adventure, fighting warriors, alien animals and beautiful naked ladies....what more could you ask for ...I was hooked. The Martian novels are my first love.
For some years now I have been trying to collect the artwork on the DELL books by I think?, Michael Whealen?? I would love to know where I could find them, I have tried his web page but he has 2 of the covers.

With kind regards
Simon Esslemont
(From England)

A MUST visit... and bookmark...
for every ERB fan is Jerry Schneider's great new ERBVILLE site.
www.angelfire.com/zine2/erbville/erbpdf.htm
The Home of the PUBLIC DOMAIN WORKS OF
EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS' in PDF Format.

Number 13 hopes to get up ALL of his Public Domain stories at some time in the future. What sets some of these texts apart from the other ones up on the Internet (such as Project Gutenberg), is that they are the COMPLETE unedited, uncensored, version. For instance, Gutenberg. uses the Ballantine censored version for their text (and all of the others who have posted the text are using that one) while Jerry's follows the original book version.

---

LOS ANGELES: March 19 - Edgar Rice Burroughs, the novelist, who created the apeman "Tarzan," famed in books and films, died this morning at his Encino home of a heart ailment. His age was 74. The author, who had been ill for three months, had eaten an early breakfast, and was lying in bed reading when death came. His daughter, Joan, and his two sons, John and Hulbert, were at the bedside. Mr. Burroughs had been a shut-in for several years. Confined to a wheelchair by a series of heart attacks, he still derived great pleasure from creating the action necessary for the Tarzan books. Two cities were named in honor of his hero, Tarzan, Calif. and Tarzan, Tex. The novelist, who began investing in California real estate from the profits of his first books, developed great tracts of land in the San Fernando Valley and sold them at prices that helped swell his fortune. After Pearl Harbor Mr. Burroughs became a war correspondent and roved the Pacific islands writing battle dispatches. He returned to his home after being invalided out of the Pacific. Later he purchased a small home in Encino, where he lived quietly. Mr. Burroughs left approximately fifteen incompleted Tarzan tales and other adventure stories. Besides his three children, five grandchildren survive. A private funeral has been set tentatively for Tuesday.

140,000,000 SAW EACH FILM
Creator of the most widely known jungle character of this century, Mr. Burroughs never considered himself in a class with Kipling. That each Tarzan movie was seen by 140,000,000 persons or that his books had sold 35,000,000 copies did not alter his conviction that his success was due to an uncanny faculty for avoiding intellectual precincts. In fifty-six languages vast multitudes read of the tribulations of the Englishman reared by apes in Africa. Two hundred newspapers, forty of them foreign, told, with pictures, how Tarzan fought along-side his animal friends against cruelty and avarice. On the radio and in children's games the loud but limited vocabulary of the jungle monarch was in constant rehearsal. A rugged man, Mr. Burroughs read little and was goaded into writing at the age of 35 only by failure at everything else he had tried. "Master of the slaughter-house branch of fiction" he was called by Alva Johnston, who added that in Mr. Burroughs' out-put was discernible "a trace of Homer, but not any Noel Coward." Starting with publication of Tarzan of the Apes in 1914, Mr. Burroughs stuck fairly close to the plots with which he had lulled himself to sleep during the days when he was unable to succeed as a clerk, accountant, salesman, railroad detective, cow handler, gold dredger or advertising man.

WROTE FIRST NOVEL IN 1912
The first time he decided to write was after reading a pulp magazine in connection with advertising work. He thought he could do as well as the contributors and, in 1912, he turned out a novel called Under the Moon of Mars which he sold for $400. For this work he used the name "Normal Bean," because he had already decided that his was the average mind in search of
average readers. Geography meant no more to Mr. Burroughs than did grammar. He had no interest in research and never set foot in Africa. Much more time was spent figuring out appealing names for his elephant, cheetah or ape than on checking the flora of their habitat. Until he began writing Mr. Burroughs showed no literary interest. Born in Chicago on Sept 1, 1875, the son of a successful distiller and manufacturer, he attended private schools, where he did poorly. His formal education was completed at military academy. Many years later, after ten movie actors had played Tarzan, Mr. Burroughs was mystified to hear that Kipling's Jungle Book had been an inspiration for his works. He replied that the source of his central character had been the tale of the weaning of Romulus and Remus by a she-wolf. By that time Mr. Burroughs had written nearly fifty books and was dictating one novel a year instead of his earlier rate of two books a year. At his best, the author had written more than 9,000 words a day.

[The Associated Press reports from Hollywood that the Tarzan movies will go on. The film producer, Sol Lesser, said he recently negotiated a contract with Mr. Burroughs for fifteen pictures to be produced over the next ten years.]