The Book I Read, Read to Joe, & Am About To Read Again: Beyond the Farthest Star by Edgar Rice Burroughs

 

My copy of this book is pretty beat-up. In fact, the cover (and isn't that a beautiful Frank Frazetta illustration?) came off completely, and I had to resort to taping it back on.

And, as you can see, some serious browning of the pages has occurred, and the whole thing is just fragile...like it could fall to pieces in my hands.

But it's 58 years old, so that's to be expected. Not to mention that I bought it second hand, and didn't pay a hell of a lot for it. 

I've just finished reading it for the second time...this time out loud to Joe. 

I'm also planning to read it again in the near future, as I just found out about (and ordered) Beyond the Farthest Star: Restored Edition (Complete and Unabridged) which was published by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. a few months ago. Apparently someone compared the text of Part I ("Adventure on Poloda") as it was published in Blue Book Magazine (Volume 74, Number 3, January 1942 *) with Burroughs' manuscript copy, and found that the magazine's editor had carved out some pieces of the story. My guess is that we're not talking about any substantial or particularly relevant material, but hey...this is Edgar Rice Burroughs we're talking about, so I didn't hesitate to throw down my money for this "complete" version. Besides, it'll be nice to have a copy of the book that I don't fear to read.

Speaking of reading Beyond the Farthest Star....

This is a good story. Burroughs often makes side observations that are actually funny...laugh out loud funny, even...and the hero of this novel, Tangor, is less perfect than the usual ERB hero. He even gets the shit beat out of him now and then. It's supposed that ERB planned to write a whole series of books set in this (the Poloda) universe, but just didn't get down to it. Probably due in part to World War II, as he signed up to be a war correspondent once Pearl Harbor happened. 

The second part of the story ("Tangor Returns") wasn't published until after Burroughs' death...first in the collection Tales of Three Planets (Canaveral Press, April 27, 1964), which also included "The Resurrection of Jimber-Jaw" (1937), "Adventure on Poloda" (1942), and "The Wizard of Venus" (1941). It was then published as a stand-alone novel by Ace Books in June of 1964--in the edition that I have. Ace did a second printing in 1969, and then Ballentine Books / Del Rey took a turn in November of 1992. Strangely enough, that's it so far as Robert B. Zeuschner's Egar Rice Burroughs: The Exhaustive Scholar's Descriptive Bibliography of American Periodical, Hardcover, Paperback, and Reprint Editions (which was published copyright 1996) goes...though it seems that Ace put out another edition in 1973... under a different Frazetta cover. **

Hmpf. Wonder how old Zeuschner missed that? Well, that's why they pay me the big bucks, after all: to track down errors in Descriptive Bibliographies that nobody in his or her (etcetera) right mind would give a gram of shit about. 

Anyway...that wasn't the point I wanted to make. That point was that Beyond the Farthest Star has been reprinted far fewer times than any other Edgar Rice Burroughs work that I know of. And the thing is, it's a really good story, much better than many of the Tarzan books.

P.S. 

Look what landed on my porch a minute ago. Now all I need is time to read it. 

News as it happens.

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And check it out...⬆...ERB doesn't even get the cover picture, just the title and four short lines of text and his by-line. And keep in mind that by 1942, Burroughs had already written all of his best known works. I tell you, he gets no respect. 

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