Talk:Edgar Rice Burroughs

John Carter Series

I believe the correct name for this series is "Barsoom", not "John Carter of Mars Series", just as the other series are titled after Pellucidar and Caspak.

Dates

The books need dates of publication. I started, but didn't have time to finish. It'd also be nice to have a more extensive biography and a photo, but I guess I should do the work on this instead of just asking for it. :-S —Frecklefoot 14:07, 17 Oct 2003 (UTC)

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Reason for link removal

Why was the link: A brief biography and works of Burroughs removed? I thought it was pretty good. —Frecklefoot 16:58, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)

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Dates on the Books.

In the article, there are a couple of books with dates occurring after Burroughs died (1950). Were these published from his original manuscripts, or were they partially complete works that were then completed by a ghost writer and subsequently published? Anyone know? -Tony

A fair number of Burroughs' books were first issued posthumously, beginning with the revival of interest in his works in the early 1960s. I believe the only one of these that was collaborative was Tarzan: the Lost Adventure, which was completed by Joe R. Lansdale. -BPK2, 12/16/05.

Warlord of Mars is listed as being written in 1914 on this page, but on the Barsoom page it says 1919. Anyone know the correct date? megaversal

Like many of Burroughs' works, this title was published as a magazine serial before being issued in book form. The 1914 date is that for the original serial; the 1919 date is that of book publication. -BPK2, 12/16/05.

"Inferior"/"superior"

Modernist, apparently unlike you, I have read the reference. For your convenience, here is a publicly available version: [1] I don't know how anyone could come to the conclusion that anything in here supports the interpretation that His views held that Anglo-Saxons were inherently inferior - Burroughs was a good old-fashioned Anglo-Saxon supremacist, as just about any Victorian novelist. In case the full article is too much for you here's a quote:

In describing Tarzan’s response to his encounters with the Anglo-Saxon world, he wrote: ‘‘It was the hallmark of his aristocratic birth, the natural outcropping of many generations of fine breeding, an hereditary instinct of graciousness which a lifetime of uncouth and savage training and environment could not eradicate’’ (Burroughs, 1992, p. 277).

Now please point out to me, using this source, and preferably without all-caps shouting, how the harebrained formulation currently in the article could be anything other than a typo or old vandalism. A case could be made that for a shortened His views held that English nobles made up a particular elite among Anglo-Saxons, which is something that he is directly quoted for multiple times in this source; sidestepping the issue of how he viewed the common Britisher in comparison to that. But there's no evidence for His views held that Anglo-Saxons were inherently inferior. Go. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 16:49, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

• Excuse me pal but this is a different reference then the one that is being used in the article - and/or rewrite your version with sources and then add it to the article; and read this: WP:STICK...Modernist (talk) 18:09, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

@Modernist: okay, one more of these, and I will just assume illiteracy and/or general incompetence on your part. Reference as used in the article: [2] Identical copy of the same on Researchgate, as provided above: [3]. A little less attitude, a little more basic reading comprehension, pal? --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 19:09, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

• This:[4] by David Smith and Alison L. Mitchell; is not this - [5] - Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Venus, Part 2: Lost on Venus, by Ryan Harvey, August 30 2011, Black Gate Magazine which is the reference - reference #41 in the article.

and For what it's worth - I actually agree with you regarding Burrough's racism; however if you want to change this article I suggest you re-edit that section and include what you consider to be a better source...Modernist (talk) 23:21, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

@Modernist: this is getting ever more bizarre. The entire content of the paragraph, with the exception of the last sentence, is sourced to the other reference (which you would know if you had read it yet). What you are proffering there is a book review that makes a few additional glosses on the topic, and is used to source one sentence only. Everything above, including all the Tarzan and Pirate Blood stuff, is in the Smith & Mitchell article. So, that's a miss. But then let us, for the sake of argument, assume that the book review actually is the source in question - where in the text is the justification for His views held that Anglo-Saxons were inherently inferior? I'm still waiting for that (but not much longer).

My suggested edit, following the sources provided, is to drop that unjustifiable statement. But that approach so far seems to be foundering on your revert button reflex. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 23:49, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

• I have removed, "whom Burroughs clearly presents as inherently inferior, even not wholly human", as this seems contradicted by Tarzan#2, The Return of Tarzan:

At dawn the hunters were off. There were fifty sleek, black warriors, and in their midst, lithe and active as a young forest god, strode Tarzan of the Apes, his brown skin contrasting oddly with the ebony of his companions. Except for color he was one of them. His ornaments and weapons were the same as theirs—he spoke their language—he laughed and joked with them, and leaped and shouted in the brief wild dance that preceded their departure from the village, to all intent and purpose a savage among savages.

I read no superiority in the above, and the Waziri tribe becomes one of Tarzan's many recurring allies of the series. In the trope/meme of the time, they were "noble savages". I interpret "savage" as "not civilized", which can mean simply, "not living in a city" (whence the Civilization games' heavy city focus); in other words, merely descriptive and true, not pejorative. ERB's Martian series also has races of various colors; it's an easy descriptor.

I don't dispute that ERB divided humans into races nor his belief in the then-popular eugenics, but he was not EEEvil, just reflecting his own (and possibly his readers') culture. We can all only write within our cultures, and popular writers even more so.

I encourage statements about why ERB wrote as he did, if well-supported by multiple authoritative sources. Wikipedia should not be pushing one author's viewpoint, and surely after a century, multiple sources about such a popular author should be easy.Laguna CA (talk) 01:13, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but the statements in these sections are based on secondary and tertiary sources (published analyses of Burrough's works), which are referenced there. WP has a strong preference of such sources over personal interpretations of source material (see WP:SECONDARY, WP:OR) and that is what we follow. I daresay it is pretty easy to find single text passages that contradict any individual thing a commentator says about an author's work as a whole, or to come to a different conclusion as a reader, but that does not invalidate the primacy of such sources for what we state in articles. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 07:00, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Eugenics in lede

@24.63.255.76 and Sid rumpo: the summary re eugenics views recently added to the lede is certianly factual and well sourced in the body (which means they don't need to be sourced in the lede). So there is no call to remove on that basis. However, I would agree that this added paragraph is unduly long - his eugenics views are not the most important, or even one of the most important, things about Burroughs, so they shouldn't take up 1/3 the text up there. I suggest condensing that into one sentence and omitting both the Tarzan example and the qualifying trailer. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 06:43, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

I have removed the lines on eugenics and scientific racism in the lead. They contained weasel worded statements without obvious references anywhere in the article (that "Tarzan was meant to reflect these concepts"). This is covered later in the page and is not significant enough to be included in the lead at all. Burroughs was not a notable thinker on eugenics and scientific racism- he is not mentioned in any of the wikipedia articles on the subject for example, and I believe he has no published non-fiction writing on the subject and no apparent influence in the field then or now. The existence of separate races in his fictional work such as Barsoom is no more or less notable than that of any other planetary romance and does not appear to be didactic. In the historical context, Burroughs was not unusually racist or a prominent racist.

Personally, I believe there are obvious political question marks over his work from our perspective today (such as the decision to make John Carter a Confederate veteran etc), but I do not see the logic for addressing these questions in the lead for what is ultimately a rather short bio entry anyway. Silverwood (talk) 16:39, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

Just to add that my removal of these lines on eugenics at the end of the leader has been immediately reverted by another User without any summary or note.

My apologies for not making the reason for my revert clear. My understanding is that the inclusion in the lead is to reflect the article itself, not his overall notability in the field of eugenics, since a lead is meant to reflect the article itself. Harryhenry1 (talk) 04:09, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Agree with revert. This is a facet of Burroughs' modern reception, treated and referenced as such in the body, and a single sentence in the lede is therefore not WP:UNDUE.--Elmidae (talk · contribs) 06:24, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks Elmidae and Harryhenry1 for your contributions. Can we do anything to improve the body on this in that case? The section on eugenics under the "criticism" heading makes up about a third of that section but only two points are referenced. One is an unreliable source (unedited personal blog). The other is a peer-reviewed journal (at the time of publication was known as "Mental Retardation" which seems anachronistic to say the least) but I can't access the content to verify anything. The majority of the text is unreferenced and appears to be original research. Thanks in advance. Silverwood (talk) 15:02, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

This link doesn't work for you for the Smith & Mitchell article? --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 15:49, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Here is a Researchgate link. Maybe we should substitute that. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 15:59, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Expansions could certainly be made. A quick skim of available material throws up this article and this book (see page 9+) on the topic of Burroughs and eugenics and (more widely) racism. As a counterpoint, there's this article that suggests that the Mars novels are specifically propounding racial toleration. As always, a certain amount of work will be required to get at the gist here. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 16:14, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Experts warned against licensing Tarzan.

Do we have a source for this claim? "Experts in the field advised against this course of action, stating that the different media would just end up competing against each other. Burroughs went ahead, however, and proved the experts wrong – the public wanted Tarzan in whatever fashion he was offered." 2601:40C:201:1778:48B7:D3D6:DAD1:96EF (talk) 21:26, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

References to Tarzan & ERB “Eugenics” and “Scientific Racism”

ERB would have considered himself a progressive due his embrace of science and scientific principles for the "improvement" of society and humanity. It's important to understand this even though his views were incredibly reactionary, conservative and based on a pretty clearly race and traditional social class hierarchical world view. He would have been a proto-fascist kind of progressive at a time when the conflicting kind of progressivism was more thoroughly egalitarian and socialist, and then, like now, largely rejected by the mainstream establishment as "dangerous" economic Marxists although they were usually called "Anarchists" to frighten people in the late 19th and early 20th century. Then, like now, the issue of economic power (who had it, who didn't, and how they got it and kept it) was typically suppressed in the thinking and discussion of social policy. Nevertheless, Burroughs would have thought of himself as on the side of "progress", even though he identified the "genetic superiority" of the tradtional British Aristocracy as the basis for power and social progress.

This is one of the most important non-literary secondary subjects to consider in the article about ERB and his work.

This is why I've added several requests for citations to claims about these subjects in the article Introduction and the Article Body itself.

Editors could vastly improve the article by adding title and page numbers, etc. to published versions of ERB's work to back up such claims about ERB's depiction of such ideas as Eugenics and Scientific Racism in his fiction and non-fiction made in the Article here.

Also, much better work needs to be done referring to secondary source material. There is very very little secondary literature listed here. I've only found one "scholarly" article (not written by a historian or a specialist in literature) referenced in the Article, and it's only available through WAYBACK MACHINE. Other secondary sources seem to be mostly popular biographies of ERB, but no page references to even these sources are made to direct users of the Article to any discussion about ERB's views on Eugenics and Scientific Racism and the British Class System or … anything that would support the claims made here in the Article about ERB's views on these very important subjects.

It's clearly very very important when reading any of ERB's work to understand the underlying reactionary hierarchical conservative world view he is promoting with Tarzan, and John Carter, and all that seemingly innocent "adventure" stories we usually take it all to be. The work is better understood and enjoyed only by having a clear understanding of the nature of the "progressive" message ERB was promoting at the time, and how his views might compare to our own today.

Thanks! J.A.I. (8T8) (talk) 22:39, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

I don't disagree that further sources and additional perspectives are desireable here, and additions would be welcome. However, that does not mean that the current material is unsourced; in fact, it is referenced to a high-quality source (an academic journal). That the full text of that journal article is most easily accessed via an archive link has no bearing on the matter (it's not as if the publication has disappeared from the web - see [6]). I have therefore removed all the "citation needed" templates, as these are for unsourced claims, of which there are none. Feel free to expand sourcing and coverage. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 08:19, 4 February 2024 (UTC)