Edgar Rice Burroughs'
TARZAN AND THE MADMAN
Cover Art ~ Publishing History ~ Summary
Cast ~ Chapter Titles ~ Lord Greystoke's Gallery
of Cover Art
PULP
Not published
FIRST EDITION
Canaveral Press: June 9, 1964 ~ 236 pages
Reed Crandall: DJ
and eight b/w interiors
REPRINT EDITIONS
Ballantine Books paperback: February 1965 ~ 160 pages
Robert Abbett
cover
Canaveral Press: 1975
Ballantine Books paperback: September 1977
Boris Vallejo
cover
TARZAN of the Apes ~ John Clayton, Lord Greystoke
Pelham Dutton ~ American hunter
Bill Gantry ~ his guide and fellow hunter
Tom Crump ~ notorious ivory poacher
Ivan Minsky ~ his companion
Sandra Pickerall ~ heiress to Thos. Pickerall's Ale, Endinburgh
"Tarzan" ~ Tarzan to himself, God to Almetejos
Cristoforo da Gama ~ King of Alemtejos
Pedro Ruiz ~ High Priest of Alemtejos
Mutimbwa ~ Chief of the Waruturi
Ga-un & Zu-tho ~ great apes
Ungo ~ king of great ape tribe
Sacho ~ ape helper of "Tarzan"
Kyomya ~ lad of Almetejos, servant of Sandra (Goddess)
Francis Bolton-Chilton ~ English prisoners of Almetejos
Osorio da Serra ~ Captain-General of the Almetejos warriors
Mal-Gash ~ Rival to Ungo, king of the apes of Ho-den
Ali ~ the Sultan
Quesceda ~ Ali's priest
Rateng ~ Galla hunter-warrior
Colin T. Randolph, Jr. ~ West Virginian pilot, earlier in Spain with Chilton
Book Blurb Summary The drums boomed forth the incredible message from tribe to tribe—Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle, had become an enemy to all, stealing and enslaving their women...even the daughter of an English millionaire, who offered a princely reward for her recapture and Tarzan's death. Certainly her captor told Sandra Pickerall that he was Tarzan...but he also told her he was God... Tarzan followed their trail with one thought in mind—to pursue and destroy utterly the man who had stolen his name and made it infamous in the jungle world he loved.
from Ballantine Books
| 1. Friends or Enemies
2. The Two Safaris 3. Hunted 4. Captured 5. Cannibal Feast 6. In Cold Blood 7. Abducted 8. Alemtejo 9. When the Lion Charged 10. Human Sacrifice 11. The Voice in the Night 12. The King Comes 13. Captured by the Cannibals 14. "Then the Door Opened" 15. "Set the White Man Free!" 16. The Plan That Failed 17. The White Slave |
18. King of All the Apes
19. The Mad Buffalo 20. The Sultan 21. The New God 22. The Battle 23. In Hiding 24. Captured by the Great Apes 25. Alone 26. Gold 27. Rateng the Hunter 28. Reunited 29. Gold and Death 30. Our First Home 31. "I Am Going to Kill You" 32. Rand 33. A Ship |
Gallery of Reed Crandall Interior
Canaveral Art
6 of 6 interior illustrations
US Paperback Covers
UK Paperback Covers
Written in 1940 but not published until 1965, this late entry in the Tarzan series never appeared in magazine form and Burroughs apparently shelved it for good. (The later TARZAN AND THE "FOREIGN LEGION" also had no success in finding a magazine sale and eventually was published by Burroughs himself, three years after it was written.) As for TARZAN AND THE MADMAN, it was eventually brought out of limbo into hardcover in 1964 by Canaveral Press and then issued as a paperback the following year.
The book starts off strongly with the mystery of why local friendly African tribes think the Apeman has been abducting women and children (who are never seen again). Tarzan is puzzled and grimly determined to find out the imposter who has been undermining his reputation (he states bluntly that he will find the man and kill him, simple as that). There is also an impressive moment when a crook takes a shot at the peacefully approaching Apeman, but even as his bullet misses, an arrow thumps into the gunman`s shoulder and Tarzan is already vanishing up into the trees. Every now and then, we get a glimpse of just how quick and dangrous the Apeman is, and this is one of those instances.
Unfortunately, the story quickly gets bogged down in the confused situation involving a mysterious lunatic who thinks he IS Tarzan* but who is believed to be God by the descendants of still another lost city founded by Europeans long ago. This time, it`s a castle populated by "chocolate-colored" people who are the result of Portugese colonists who have intermixed with the native Africans, and of course they are in a state of perpetual war with an opposing city populated by descendants of the Moors who had been chasing the Portugese. Haven`t we seen this setup all before? By this time, Burroughs had settled down to mixing five or six familiar ingredients in different combinations for each Tarzan book, and the result usually fell flat with a dull thud. Alemtejos,this particular lost civilization, is mostly there to make some heavy handed satire about organized religion, and since Tarzan doesn`t care particularly about the society, neither does the reader.
The story lacks any of the supporting cast. Jane, Korak, the Waziris are not even mentioned. For all we know, Tarzan is a solitary creature with no family and only a casually friendly footing with some of the native tribes. He seems oddly distracted and disinterested in the whole proceedings, as if he is bored by the whole business and would welcome a bash on the head so he can have amnesia again and nol have to think about anything other than eating and sleeping. (It`s also ironic that Tarzan scoffs at the idea of his desiring some of the treasure. "What would I do with gold?" he asks, conveniently forgetting all the time and work he made his Waziri tribesmen put in to looting Opar.)
Burroughs is still putting humans down and attributing imaginary virtues to animals. He writes that animals are not avaricious or greedy; of COURSE they are, almost every species from hummingbirds to deer spend much of their time defending their territory or trying to extend it, just like humans. And he repeats that animals do not lie. (Duh! If you can`t use language, you can`t lie. And don`t you think that if your pets could talk, that the cat would constantly be trying to blame everything on the dog? Or that the dog would be saying some burglar must have gotten in and eaten the steak on the dinner table?)
It`s also worth noting that while the great apes (the word "gorilla" is never used here, as by this time the mangani were seen as a seperate species) are happy to eat "plaintains, bananas, tender shoots and occasionally a juicy caterpillar", they don`t mind a bit of meat now and then. This matches what modern observors have reported and it seems odd that Tarzan (who was raised by them) is so completely carniverous. In every book, he pounces on a pig or deer and devours some of it before taking off again. Seldom if ever is it mentioned that he eats fruit or nuts. Why he doesn`t have scurvy or other nutritional deficiencies is puzzling, unless he makes a point to eat the contents of his prey`s stomachs and upper intestines. It would be easier to pick some fruit or shoots, but maybe it wouldn`t be as colorful.
TARZAN AND THE MADMAN is not so much an awful book as it is uninspired. There are some good parts, as when two treasure hunters lugging heavy gold are dying of thirst and exhaustion but refuse to abandon the treasure. But in general, there`s very little here we haven`t seen before, little of the creative energy and enthusiasm that made the early books in this series so compelling and so rewarding to read again. If there had been a monthly Tarzan pulp magazine in the 1930s, this would probably be regarded as an average issue; but considered as an independent book, for which expectations would be higher, it`s disappointing. I would not recommend it to someone wanting to try a book in the series... TARZAN THE TERRIBLE or JUNGLE TALES OF TARZAN have much more energy and creativity, and would give a better feel to a new reader.
*At least this guy doesn`t look like the genuine Apeman, although they are about the same size. After Esteban Miranda and Stanley Obroski, it would be too much to have another dude showing up who just happens to look enough like Tarzan to fool even his wife. And the convoluted explanation of how a man obssessed with Tarzan ends up impersonating the real Apeman stretches your suspension of disbelief to the point where it has trouble snapping back after the book is over.
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