The Book I'm Reading to Joe: The Outlaw of Torn by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Public Domain
Note: Not only doesn't The Outlaw of Torn get the illustration, 
it doesn't even get mentioned by name on the cover!

This is actually my second time reading The Outlaw of Torn, since I previously read it solo. This reading is also the 66th Edgar Rice Burroughs book I have read out loud to Joe. (18 to go!)

The Outlaw of Torn was the second novel that ERB wrote...following hard on the heels of A Princess of Mars and just before Tarzan of the Apes. But the publishing history is a bit convoluted here. To wit:

A Princess of Mars was serialized from February–July, 1912, but was not published as a hardcover until 1917.

The Outlaw of Torn was serialized from January to May 1914, but was not published in book form until 1927.

And Tarzan of the Apes was first published in magazine form in October 1912, and was subsequently published in book form in 1914.

So ERB's first book was Tarzan of the Apes, but it was actually his third novel. And his first novel was his second published book. His second book was not published until much later...after he'd published many other books. From what I remember from the ERB biographies I've read, the publisher kept requesting rewrites from ERB, and even after he had acquiesced a number of times, they still didn't want to publish it. 

Last night we read Chapter V--and by the way, the book is now in the public domain, and you can read it in its entirety on Project Gutenberg (HERE)--and I was struck (probably for the second time, but I'd forgotten this detail in the time since my first reading) by the name of one of the English knights who enter the story at this point:

ERB did a lot of this crossover kind of thing...so Tarzan (and his kin) do pop up in other works, but this was the earliest "crossover," for sure, and it also made me wonder: did ERB write The Outlaw of Torn before he had written Tarzan of the Apes? I think that is true. Of course, he could have inserted the Greystoke name later on in one of his many rewrites, but still...I thought it was interesting. Also, The Outlaw of Torn is set in 13th century England...so this knight fellow would have been Tarzan's Great x 32 * Grandfather. 

And by the way...The Outlaw of Torn is a thrilling read. ERB encountered great resistance from his publishers any time he tried to step out of the Tarzan universe, but the truth (as I know it to be) is that his best books were not Tarzan stories. It makes me wonder what else he would have written if he'd been allowed off of the Tarzan leash earlier on...which he obviously desired, I think from about the sixth outing. (I'm relying on a hazy memory there, but I know for certain ** that he had no desire to write 24 *** Tarzan novels.)

* -ish.

** Based upon reading several in-depth biographies.

*** 26 if you include the Golden Lion kiddie books, and 27 if you include The Lost Adventure, which was completed by  Joe R. Lansdale.