The Unauthorized Tarzan - Ace Books!

The Frank Frazetta cover above for Tarzan and the Lost Empire is my all-time favorite image of ERB's famous King of the Jungle. Frazetta has captured the very essence of what makes a Tarzan novel magnetic, the supreme physicality of the hero, his unique relationship to animals and the natural world and the allure of splendid hidden territories. We are privileged to see the Tarzan's world from over his shoulder, we share his viewpoint perched atop a cliff dangling with assurance by a single arm and considering the lost city in the misty distance. I also love that Nikima is clutching onto Tarzan as Tarzan is to the twisted root which is all that keeps him from certain death. 

I found this ACE papeback in my local library when I was but a lad and it was one of my first Tarzan novels. I knew the character from television and had read at least one Whtiman book featuring him, but this novel and more importantly this image by Frazetta projected me into Tarzan's world as nothing else had, and in some ways I've never returned. 

The ACE paperbacks were produced when the publisher (like some others such as Charlton Comics) thought that some of the Ape Man's adventures had fallen into public domain. ACE produced many Tarzan novels and many other ERB books in the Pellucidar and Mars series among others. But the folks who tended to ERB's properties cracked the whip and so these errant publications were halted abruptly. Below are the Tarzan novels ACE was able to get to the newsstands before the hammer fell. The cover art is by Frazetta and Roy Krenkel. 

 

And that my friends pretty much wraps up my looks at all things Tarzan and Edgar Rice Burroughs, a journey that has occupied much of 2022. Tomorrow the widow strikes. 

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