Few would ever claim that Edgar Rice Burroughs was a great writer at any point in his career, but it should be noted that he was an extremely poor writer at the start of his career. He improved immensely during those first few years, but re-reading his early books can often be rather painful. On the other hand, he did have a lot of very good ideas, and that is why his series are still remembered and still read today. This is especially true of Tarzan, in which he created an iconic character who is known by many people who have never even read one word of Burroughs’ work. “The Return of Tarzan”, the second in the Tarzan series which was published from June through December 1913 in “New Story Magazine” is a good example of the contrast of good ideas and poor writing.

The story picks up where “Tarzan of the Apes” left off; Tarzan had given up his legacy and the woman he loved and travels to Paris to see his friend Paul d’Arnot. On the way there, he makes an enemy of Nikolas Rokoff, and Rokoff becomes Tarzan’s nemesis. In the first book, time and time again Tarzan took on Lions, but in this book it is Rokoff that Tarzan repeatedly faces, at least in the first half. That being said, Rokoff does make a bit more interesting of a foe, as he has different schemes, but it still becomes tiresome. As the action moves back to Africa, the Lions return as a repeated foe, though Rokoff is still lurking around.

Another significant weakness of Burroughs writing at this time was his reliance on the amazing coincidence. When Tarzan is pushed overboard by Rokoff, he amazingly makes it to shore almost exactly where he lived before he was found. When the others are forced to abandon ship, they too find themselves within a few miles of the same spot even though they are split into two groups. The only slightly saving factor is they are completely unaware of how close they are to that spot.

On the positive side, Burroughs has some good ideas. He makes Tarzan struggle with his barbaric ways when in civilization. His creation of the lost city is inventive and adds a different element to the story as well. This highlights one of the key differences between the Barsoom series on the one side, and Tarzan on the other. With the Barsoom series, Burroughs was able to create an entire world, but with Tarzan he was constrained by reality, and thus it is Tarzan repeatedly fighting Lions and other wild beasts. With the lost city, Burroughs is free to break away from the constraints of the known Earth.

For the reasons given above, I don’t think the first two books of the Tarzan series hold up as well as the first two books of the Barsoom series. Neither of the series has great writing, but Mars, as a setting, gave Burroughs much more freedom to invent and imagine then did Earth, and that played to Burroughs’ strength. At the same time, one shouldn’t judge these stories too harshly. They are still good fun if somewhat dated, and if one just wants some mindless adventure they can still fill that need.