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Edgar Rice Burroughs (known in fandom as simply ERB) (September 1, 1875 – March 19, 1950) was above all an adventure writer, best known as the creator of Tarzan of the Apes. Tarzan was a British lord orphaned in Africa and raised by great apes. While Burroughs wrote in nearly every genre imaginable, the majority of his work is science fiction. His first novel, published in the great pulp magazine All-Story in 1912, opened a series of books dealing with life on the planet Mars, depicted by Burroughs as a dying planet with semi-barbaric societies made up of several species (one of which is identical to terrestrial human beings) and called by its inhabitants Barsoom. One of Burroughs' most popular series was set in a locale known not to exist—the supposed hollow interior of the Earth (or "Pellucidar," as Burroughs named it). Two independent novels are generally considered his most successful: The Land that Time Forgot (combining three previously published shorter novels), concerning the discovery of a remote island in which all of evolution is on display (1918, reprinted in book-form in 1924); and The Moon Maid, a vision of the decline of terrestrial civilization following conquest by a people living in the interior of the moon (serialized in 1923-25, and published in book form in 1926). The best single book about Burroughs and his writing is Irwin Porges, Edgar Rice Burroughs: The Man who Created Tarzan (New York: Ballantine Books, 1976).
Burroughs' works have frequently been adapted. In addition to Tarzan (the inspiration for many movies, several TV series, and games), The Land That Time Forgot and others have been made into films.
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