Birth of Edgar Rice Burroughs – Tarzan, Barsoom, and the Vocabulary of Adventure

September 1, 1875

The Storyteller Who Invented New Worlds

On September 1, 1875, Edgar Rice Burroughs was born in Chicago, Illinois—a writer who would become one of the most influential architects of modern adventure and pulp fiction. Best known as the creator of Tarzan of the Apes (1912) and the Barsoom series (beginning with A Princess of Mars, 1912), Burroughs reshaped English popular storytelling and embedded new vocabulary, archetypes, and imaginative tropes into the language of global culture. His works bridged the divide between pulp periodicals and enduring literary myth, making him a central figure in the evolution of fantasy, science fiction, and adventure prose.

Lexical Contributions and Pop Vocabulary

Burroughs’s impact on English extended beyond narrative—he coined or popularized words, phrases, and stylistic markers that entered cultural usage:

“Tarzanesque”: An adjective denoting heroic physical prowess, wild jungle settings, or primal masculinity—quickly absorbed into English as shorthand for a particular heroic archetype.
“Apeman” / “Ape-man”: A compound expression crystallized in Tarzan of the Apes, it influenced English vocabulary around hybrid identities and anthropological imagination.
“Barsoomian”: Derived from his Martian cycle (Barsoom being his fictional Mars), it became an emblem of pulp science fiction world-building vocabulary.
“Jungle hero”: Burroughs’s Tarzan codified the phrase in English, transforming it into a universal narrative template.
“Lost worlds”: Though predating Burroughs, his serials solidified the term’s association with hidden kingdoms, prehistoric beasts, and adventure pulp.

Through these expressions, Burroughs ensured that fantasy vocabulary moved from pulp magazines into common English idiom.

Adventure and Pulp Storytelling Terminology

Burroughs also shaped English-language discourse around adventure literature, expanding the lexicon of heroism and escapism:

“Jungle myth”: Used by critics to describe Tarzan’s fusion of nature, nurture, and noble savagery, later echoed in English anthropological and literary debate.
“Sword-and-planet”: A subgenre label in English literary criticism, directly linked to Burroughs’s Barsoom stories—melding swashbuckling romance with extraterrestrial landscapes.
“Pulp imagination”: A critical phrase used in modern English to describe the vivid but formulaic storytelling style of magazines where Burroughs thrived.
“Adventure serial”: Reinforced by his works, this term became a staple of English publishing vocabulary, later migrating to film and radio.

Cultural and Literary Legacy

Burroughs’s legacy is not confined to novels but extends to cinema, comics, and cultural phraseology:

The word “Tarzan” itself has become a cultural metonym—appearing in dictionaries to denote athleticism, jungle imagery, or even comic exaggeration of wildness.
“Tarzan yell”: An auditory icon later popularized in film adaptations, now firmly in English cultural lexicon.
His storytelling style also inspired broader terms like “Burroughsian adventure” and “planetary romance”, both recurring in English literary criticism.

Burroughs thus occupies a rare position where his creations blur the line between literature and linguistic archetype, embedding themselves directly into English as both name and metaphor.

Conclusion

The birth of Edgar Rice Burroughs on September 1, 1875 marked the arrival of a writer whose imagination would leave an indelible mark on English-language narrative and cultural vocabulary. From “Tarzanesque” heroics to the “Barsoomian” landscapes of Mars, his works gave English a lexicon of adventure that continues to shape literature, film, and pop culture. Just as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein coined enduring metaphors of science and creation, Burroughs’s Tarzan and Barsoom stories coined the language of pulp mythmaking—ensuring that his name, and his words, remain as eternal as the jungle cry of Tarzan himself.

From jungle cries to Martian skies, Burroughs gave language to adventure itself.

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