Edgar Rice Burroughs relaxing after a day of riding.
(First publication of original photograph)
I am sorry that I have not led a more exciting
existence, so that I might
offer a more interesting biographical sketch;
but I am one of those fellows
who has few adventures and always gets to
the fire after it is out.
I was born in Peking at the time that my
father was military advisor to
the Empress of China, and lived there, in
the Forbidden City, until I was
ten years old. An intimate knowledge of the
Chinese language acquired during
those years has often stood me in good stead
since, especially in prosecuting
two of my favorite studies, Chinese philosophy
and Chinese ceramics.
Shortly after the family returned to the United States I was kidnapped
by gypsies and held by them for almost three years. They were not unkind
to me. and in many respects the life appealed to me, but eventually I escaped
and returned to my parents.
. . .
EVEN TODAY, after the lapse of many years, I distinctly
recall the
storm-torn night of my escape. Pedro, the
king of the gypsies, always kept
me in his tent at night where he and his
wife could guard me. He was a
very light sleeper, which had always presented
a most effective obstacle
to my eluding the clutches of my captors.
This night the rain and wind and thunder aided me. Waiting until Pedro
and his wife were asleep, I started to crawl toward the tent flap. As I
passed close beside the king one of my hands fell upon a hard metal object
lying beside him; it was Pedro's dagger. At the same instant Pedro awoke.
A vivid lightning flash illuminated the interior of the tent, and I saw
Pedros eyes fixed upon me.
Perhaps fright motivated me, or perhaps it
was just anger against my abductors. My fingers
closed upon the hilt of his dagger, and in
the darkness that followed the lightning
I plunged the slim steel blade deep into
his heart. He was the first man I had ever
killed; he died without a sound.
My parents were rejoiced by my return, as they had long since abandoned
all hope of ever seeing me again. For a year we travelled in Europe, where
under a tutor, I pursued my interrupted education to such good effect that
I was able to enter Yale upon our return.
. . .
WHILE AT YALE I won a few athletic honors, annexing both the heavyweight
boxing and wrestling championships; and in my senior year I captained the
football team and the crew. Graduating summa cum laude, I spent
two years at Oxford and then returned to the United States and enlisted
in the army for a commission from the ranks.
At the end of two years I received my appointment
as a second lieutenant and was attached to
the 7th Cavalry. My first active service
was with Custer at the battle of the Little
Big Horn, of which I was the sole survivor.
My escape from death during the massacre
was almost miraculous. My horse had been
shot from under me, and I was fighting on
foot with the remnant of my troop. I can
only guess at what actually occurred; but
I believe that the bullet that struck me
in the head must have passed through the
head of the man in front of me and, with
its force spent, merely have stunned me.
I fell with my body between two small boulders;
and later a horse was shot above me, his
body falling on top of mine and concealing
it from the eyes of the enemy, the two boulders
preventing it's weight from crushing me.
Gaining consciousness after dark, I crawled
from beneath the horse and made my escape.
. . .
AFTER WANDERING for six weeks in an effort to elude the
Indians
and rejoin my people, I reached an army outpost,
but when I attempted to
rejoin my regiment I was told that I was
dead. Insistence upon my rights
resulted in my being arrested for impersonating
an officer. Every member
of the court knew me and deeply deplored
the action they were compelled
to take; but I was officially dead, and army
regulations are army regulations.
I took the matter to Congress, but had no
better success there; and finally
I was compelled to change my name, adopting
that which I now use, and start
life all over again. . .
For several years I fought Apaches in Arizona. but the monotony of it palled
upon me, and I was overjoyed when I received a telegram from the late Henry
M. Stanley inviting me to join his expedition to Africa in search of Dr.
Livingstone.
I accepted immediately and also put five
hundred thousand dollars at his disposal,
but with the understanding that my name or
my connection with the expedition was not
to be divulged, as I have always shrunk from
publicity.
. . .
SHORTLY AFTER ENTERING AFRICA I became separated from the relief
party and was captured by Tippoo Tib's Arabs. The night that they were
going to put me to death I escaped, but a week later I fell into the hands
of a tribe of cannibals. My long, golden hair and my flowing mustache and
beard of the same hue filled them with such awe that they accorded me the
fearful deference that they reserved for their primitive gods and demons.
They offered me no harm, but kept me a prisoner
among them for three years. They also kept
in captivity several large anthropoid apes
of a species which I believe is entirely
unknown to science. The animals were of huge
size and of great intelligence; and during
my captivity I learned their language, which
was to stand me in such good stead when I
decided, many years later, to record some
of my experiences in the form of fiction.
I finally escaped from the cannibal village
and made my way to the coast, where, penniless
and friendless, I shipped before the mast
on a windjammer bound for China.
Wrecked off the coast of Asia, I eventually
made my way overland to Russia, where I enlisted
in the imperial cavalry. A year later it
happened to be my good fortune to kill an
anarchist as he was attempting the assassination
of the Czar; for this service I was made
a captain and attached to the imperial bodyguard.
It was while in his Majesty's Service that
I met my wife, a lady-in-waiting to the Czarina;
and when, shortly after we were married,
my grandfather died and left me eight million
dollars we decided to come to America to
live.
With my wife's fortune and mine, it was unnecessary
for me to work; but I could not be idle;
so I took up writing, more as a pastime than
as a vocation.
We lived in Chicago for some years and then
came to Southern California, where we have
lived for more than thirteen years at that
now famous watering place, Tarzana.
We have eleven children, seventeen grandchildren,
and three great grandchildren.
I have tasted fame... it is nothing. I find
my greatest happiness in being alone with
my violin.
Based on Rob Wagner's SCRIPT
(for which Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote the sketch on July 9, 1932).