Beyond a doubt, Edgar Rice Burroughs was a literary phenomenon, he still remains so to this day, with his books in popular demand around the world and films being produced by major companies, such as the recent release of the animated film "Tarzan" by Disney. There has been no one like him in American fantasy literature, nor anyone like him since. He remains a major influence on those science fiction fantasy authors who followed, such as Ray Bradbury.

During his lifetime, his work, amazing as it seems now, failed to gather critical acclaim, yet influenced a generation. By the mid-1960s' his work sold well over 50 million copies, and had written  about 60 books. His first book appeared in 1914 and his first story was published in magazine form in 1912. His work is still being published today and a whole new generation of young people are "rediscovering" him, mainly through efforts of media promotion and films such as "Tarzan" by Disney. Even with the advent of the Internet, young people still desire his books which are written on paper and the collectability of the rare first editions and early printings of his books have never been in higher demand, commanding very high prices for very good or better dust jacketed copies.

His books such as "Tarzan of The Apes" and  "A Princess of Mars" still hold up well despite being written over 80 years ago. Only a few things are dated in his Martian series books (such as copying machines taking several minutes to copy paper)-but even more amazing is his use of descriptive predictions of such things as Mars space ships having "cloaking devices,"  and the use of rays resembling holograms and lasars. Some of his character names used in the Martian tales take on a very strong resemblance to Star Wars  character character names  as well as some of the physical  creature resemblances  from that film.

Edgar Rice Burroughs got a start in writing after some failed attempts at being a salesman, railroad policeman and other professions. He would spent time daydreaming and reading pulp magazines and deciding that he could write a better pulp story, transcribed his first story onto paper at the age of 35 in 1911.  At the time he thought the story so far-out and fantastic that he signed it under the pseudonym "Normal Bean" and submitted it to The All-Story Magazine , which  accepted it and published it under the name of Norman Bean. This story was published in the February through July issues of 1912 with the title of Under The Moons of Mars,  which in 1917 was published in book form as A Princess of Mars.  

Burroughs always stated that he wrote merely and expressly to entertain and provide an escape to the problems of daily life.  At this he is still the supreme master.

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