Tarzan

Abstract

Created by the author Edgar Rice Burroughs the fictional character Tarzan was born Lord Greystoke, a member of an aristocratic British family. Stranded in the African jungle as a small child, Tarzan is found and raised by a group of primates. The character was first introduced to the public in 1912 in Tarzan of the Apes, which appeared in the magazine All-Story. The twenty-five novels that followed between 1912 and 1947 were a huge commercial success, with over 100 million copies sold, and Tarzan has become symbolic of a primal form of masculinity untouched by Western industrial civilization, as well as an escapist fantasy for generations of boys and men.