Tarzan the Untamed

What It's About

Set during the First World War, this seventh novel in the series takes Tarzan out of the wilderness and into the conflict raging across East Africa. Driven by a bitter personal loss, he abandons any restraint and sets out to track down those responsible, using all his jungle cunning against enemy soldiers, hostile tribes and the predators of the forest. Along the way he encounters strange peoples, dangerous rivals and an unexpected ally, in a fast-moving story of pursuit and survival.

Key Concepts

The novel is built around vengeance and the question of how far a man who is part civilised aristocrat, part wild creature will let rage override his better nature. It also reflects the war fever of its time. The German characters are portrayed in strongly propagandistic terms, which modern readers may find heavy-handed, and the book's depiction of African peoples reflects the colonial attitudes of the era. Read as a period piece, it is a vivid example of wartime pulp adventure.

About the Author

Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875–1950) was an American writer born in Chicago. After drifting through a series of unsuccessful jobs, he turned to writing pulp fiction in his mid-thirties and became one of the most commercially successful and widely read adventure novelists of the twentieth century.