#edgarriceburroughs - Every Day With Edgar Rice Burroughs - July 17, 2025

 July 17, 2025 and eighty-nine years ago on this day in 1936, author Erling B. Holtsmark, Tarzan and Tradition, and Edgar Rice Burroughs, Twayne’s US Author Series, was born.

Jack received a B.A. in Greek from the University of California at Berkeley in 1959 and a Ph.D. in Classics from there in 1963. He came to teach in Classics at the University of Iowa in Fall 1963. He was department chair from 1982 through to 1993. Jack published numerous articles over the years on various topics including on Homer, Aeschylus, Theocritus, Lucretius, and Quintilian. Later in his career he became interested in contemporary literature and the Classics, publishing Tarzan and Tradition: Classical Myth in Popular Literature in 1981, Edgar Rice Burroughs in 1986, and articles on classics and contemporary cinema and on detective fiction. He was the guest of honor at the 1991 Dum-Dum.

The drabble for today is an excerpt, edited for length, from the article, “Classical Images of Edgar Rice Burroughs,” by Alan Hanson. The entire article is located at https://www.erbzine.com/mag66/6617.html

“Tarzan and John Carter are the literary blood brothers of Odysseus, and Edgar Rice Burroughs is the incarnation of Homer. That’s what Erling B. Holtsmark would have us believe in his books, “Tarzan and Tradition” and “Edgar Rice Burroughs.” Professor Holtsmark contends Burroughs patterned, plotted, and packaged his stories in the format of classical mythology. To the average Burroughs fan, the good professor’s arguments range from convincing to far-fetched to unfathomable.

“Holtsmark’s discussion may be beyond the comprehension (not to mention the interest) of the blue-collar Burroughs reader, but even those must realize Burroughs had extensive knowledge of Greek mythology.”