Tarzan of the Apes - Tarzan 1

Zusatztext “[Burroughs has] a gift very few writers of any kind possess: he can describe action vividly.” —Gore Vidal Informationen zum Autor John Taliaferro is the author of Tarzan Forever: The Life of Edgar Rice Burroughs , Creator of Tarzan and Great White Fathers: The Story of the Obsessive Quest to Create Mount Rushmore . He lives in Texas and Montana. Klappentext Deep in the savage African jungle! the baby Tarzan was raised by a fierce she-ape of the tribe of Kerchack. There he had to learn the secrets of the wild to survive-how to talk with animals! swing through the trees! and fight against the great predators. He grew to the strength and courage of his fellow apes. And in time! his human intelligence promised him the kingship of the tribe. He became truly Lord of the Jungle. Then men entered his jungle! bringing with them the wanton savagery of civilized greed and lust-and bringing also the first white woman Tarzan has ever seen. Now suddenly! Tarzan had to choose between two worlds. . . . I Out to Sea I had this story from one who had no business to tell it to me, or to any other. I may credit the seductive influence of an old vintage upon the narrator for the beginning of it, and my own skeptical incredulity during the days that followed for the balance of the strange tale. When my convivial host discovered that he had told me so much, and that I was prone to doubtfulness, his foolish pride assumed the task the old vintage had commenced, and so he unearthed written evidence in the form of musty manuscript, and dry official records of the British Colonial Office to support many of the salient features of his remarkable narrative. I do not say the story is true, for I did not witness the happenings which it portrays, but the fact that in the telling of it to you I have taken fictitious names for the principal characters quite sufficiently evidences the sincerity of my own belief that it may be true. The yellow, mildewed pages of the diary of a man long dead, and the records of the Colonial Office dovetail perfectly with the narrative of my convivial host, and so I give you the story as I painstakingly pieced it out from these several various agencies. If you do not find it credible you will at least be as one with me in acknowledging that it is unique, remarkable, and interesting. From the records of the Colonial Office and from the dead man’s diary we learn that a certain young English nobleman, whom we shall call John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, was commissioned to make a peculiarly delicate investigation of conditions in a British West Coast African Colony from whose simple native inhabitants another European power was known to be recruiting soldiers for its native army, which it used solely for the forcible collection of rubber and ivory from the savage tribes along the Congo and the Aruwimi. The natives of the British Colony complained that many of their young men were enticed away through the medium of fair and glowing promises, but that few if any ever returned to their families. The Englishmen in Africa went even further, saying that these poor blacks were held in virtual slavery, since after their terms of enlistment expired their ignorance was imposed upon by their white officers, and they were told that they had yet several years to serve. And so the Colonial Office appointed John Clayton to a new post in British West Africa, but his confidential instructions centered on a thorough investigation of the unfair treatment of black British subjects by the officers of a friendly European power. Why he was sent, is, however, of little moment to this story, for he never made an investigation, nor, in fact, did he ever reach his destination. Clayton was the type of Englishman that one likes best to associate with the noblest monuments of historic achievement...

Product details

• Authors: E. Burroughs
• Publisher: Ballantine
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback
• Released: 12.03.1984
• EAN: 9780345319777
• ISBN: 978-0-345-31977-7
• No. of pages: 288
• Dimensions: 106 mm x 175 mm x 16 mm
• Subject: Children's and young people's books > Children's books up to 11 years of age