I discovered an interesting book on Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950) and his works that was produced by the National Capital Panthans, a Washington, D.C., area group of the Burroughs Bibliophiles. It’s one of the largest such local groups, with a monthly meeting (now via Zoom) and a monthly journal.
Edgar Rice Burroughs: The Second Century has the subtitle of “Celebrating the Life & Works of the Master Storyteller.” It came out in 2010 and is available on Amazon. It was designed by artist Mark Wheatley, which makes it a very pleasing package. It’s about 180 pages with several articles, short stories, and poems, along with artwork.
I wasn’t aware of this group until I got copies of their National Capital Panthans Journal at the recent PulpFest. I learned that these were the last of the print editions as it’s now a monthly PDF ezine since #182. The latest issue is #328 (September 2024). While the group doesn’t have a website, it does have a Facebook page and you can contact John Tyner at tyner@taliesan.com if you’d like to subscribe.
We start off with an introduction that gives “A History of Burroughs Fandom.” I didn’t know about all the various groups that existed over time. Next is a good overview of Burroughs’s pulp fiction. Thankfully it started with an introduction of pulp fiction, helpful for those who don’t know or have been misinformed on it. We then get an article providing a dozen people’s explanations of how they discovered Burroughs.
From Henry G. Franke III of the Burroughs Bibliophiles is an opinion piece on why we should care about Burroughs in the 21st century. Another article looks at the ERBzin-e online fanzine. I’ve visited that site several times and found it a great source of information on all things ERB.
Two articles focus on collecting. One looks at the wide range of kinds of things people can collect with Burroughs. Another looks at the problem of variants for bibliophiles.
Fiction pieces include “Biker Babes of Mars,” “A Serving Man of Mars,” “Bucky Bodine and La,” “Pandor Wat and the Tribunal of Sleep,” “Archimedes Q. Porter Tells All,” and “Operation Kaji Freedom.” And we get an eight-page comicbook story with a Tarzan pastiche named Dagna, Lord of the Beasts.
Overall I enjoyed this collection. I thought it great to have a variety of works, both fiction and non-fiction. The stories I read were good, and the articles I found interesting; most avoided just being another boring rehash of information. Anyone who is a Burroughs fan should consider getting this volume. I may look at subscribing to their Journal as well.
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