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Tarzan The famous Tarzan series of books and movies had a very humble beginning. During the first half of the 20th century, cheap magazines filled with a wide variety of fiction - known as pulp magazines - were popular in the US. In 1912, one such magazine featured the first instalments of "Tarzan of the Apes - A Romance in the Jungle", by Edgar Rice Burroughs. The story was amazingly popular and letters of congratulations flooded the magazine's offices. The sequel to the original Tarzan was rejected by the magazine, however. As a result, Burroughs went to a rival publication with the new story and so won over even more readers. However, when he came to try and get the stories published as a novel, no publisher was interested. Instead, he was contacted by the New York Evening World newspaper who wished to serialise the story. The popularity of the serialization was immense and other newspapers bought the rights to publish the stories as well. After that, the publishers changed their minds about a Tarzan novel. Years later, the first Tarzan movie appeared, in 1932 and the famous Tarzan yell was born, causing a nation of children to hang from climbing frames, imitating the cry at the top of their lungs. The Tarzan books have also had their fair share of problems in later life. In 1962 - 12 years after Burroughs died - an LA librarian tried to have the Tarzan books banned as immoral due to the fact that Tarzan and Jane were living together, yet not married. However, her claims were shot down by legions of furious Tarzan fans - it was to turn out that she had only watched the movies, not read the books or she would have known that the two got married at the end of "Return of Tarzan". Since the first appearance of Tarzan, there have been 25 Tarzan stories and a multitude of movies. |
