Tarzan of the Apes is an adventure fiction book written by Edgar Rice Burroughs in 1912 and initially published serially in the pulp magazine The All-Story before being printed as a novel in 1914. Burroughs was an American from Chicago who had a variety of careers before building a name for himself as a writer of pulp fiction. His first story, entitled Under the Moons of Mars (1911), became the first book in the science fiction Barsoom series, while his follow-up series, Tarzan of the Apes, reflects his interest in adventure stories and the concept of heredity. Burroughs supported eugenics, an ideology that seeks to improve the human genome by only allowing those who possess certain characteristics to live and reproduce. His Tarzan series frequently reflects his underlying belief in scientific racism, for the protagonist, as a white English male, is persistently depicted being as intellectually and physically superior to both animals and to non-white people. Within the limitations of Burroughs’s inherently prejudiced perspective, Tarzan comes to represent the “best” aspects of both nature and nurture; the author’s narration claims that Tarzan’s English heritage makes him “naturally” reasonable and virtuous, while his life among the apes teaches him physical strength and enhances his senses. Tarzan of the Apes has been adapted into numerous films over the years, with versions being produced as early as 1918. More recently, the Walt Disney Company used the story as the basis for the 1999 animated film Tarzan, and in 2016, The Legend of Tarzan was released, starring Alexander Skarsgård and Margot Robbie as Tarzan and Jane Porter, respectively.

This guide refers to the edition published by Global Grey in 2019.

Content Warning: The source material features extensive examples of racist ideology and language. Additionally, the source material includes depictions of racially motivated violence such as lynching.

Plot Summary

Tarzan of the Apes begins with a narrator who claims that he is about to relate a true story that he first heard from an inebriated companion and later verified by collecting documentary evidence. The narrator implies that all the details are accurate, but that the names of the characters have been altered to obscure their true identities. The narrator’s story begins with John Clayton, Viscount of Greystroke, an English lord who is sent to Africa to try to “stabilize” the region after a rival European nation (implied to be Belgium) has forcefully co-opted the local population into their army. On this venture, Clayton brings his wife, Lady Alice, who is pregnant at the time. However, the ship that they charter to take them down the coast is overtaken by mutineers, and John and Alice are marooned on the coast of Africa. They try to build a cabin to protect themselves from dangerous wild animals, but after being forced to shoot an ape to protect her husband, Alice experiences shock and loses touch with reality. She gives birth to her child, also named John Clayton, and then dies a year later.

A nearby group of apes called the Mangani, led by a male ape named Kerchak, comes to the cabin to try to kill John Clayton and destroy his gun. One of the apes, Kala, recently lost her infant when Kerchak threw it from a tree. When the apes break into the cabin, Kerchak kills John Clayton, but Kala adopts the human baby in place of her own lost ape baby. The boy, named “Tarzan” because of his white skin, is raised by Kala as a member of the ape group. While he is initially much weaker than the apes, his superior mental abilities allow him to discover tools and strategies for surviving the jungle. Once he is old enough to find the Claytons’ cabin, Tarzan acquires his father’s hunting knife and begins to teach himself to read using the books left behind. Armed with a knife and a rope, Tarzan dominates the jungle, establishes himself as the leader of the apes, and kills several dangerous animals, including a lion and a gorilla.

Eventually, an African ethnic group led by a leader named Mbongo relocates to the jungle. While Tarzan recognizes these people as fellow-humans, he is disgusted by their practices of human sacrifice and cannibalism. He begins to kill members of the community using his rope, eventually inspiring such fear and superstition that they begin to leave him offerings of food and arrows as though he were an angry god.

When Tarzan is an adult, another group of humans is marooned on the African coast. The party includes Professor Porter, an American historian who has discovered a buried Spanish treasure; his daughter Jane Porter; her suitor and Tarzan’s cousin, William Cecil Clayton; and Jane’s Black servant, Esmerelda. Tarzan protects these humans from danger in the jungle and leaves them written messages to identify himself. He falls in love with Jane, and they share a kiss after he rescues her from another ape named Terkoz.

A French naval ship arrives and rescues the marooned party, forcing Jane to leave Tarzan and return to her home in Baltimore. However, one of the French officers named Paul D’Arnot is captured by Mbongo’s community. Tarzan saves the man before the they can eat him, and D’Arnot teaches Tarzan to speak French. Tarzan and D’Arnot resolve to journey to “civilization” so that Tarzan can find Jane. They travel across Africa and eventually to Paris. D’Arnot comes to suspect that Tarzan is the real Lord Greystroke and has his fingerprints taken for analysis.

Back in America, Jane is being forced to marry a rich man named Robert Canler in order to settle her father’s debts after they lost the Spanish treasure. Tarzan saves her from a forest fire near her family home and reveals that he recovered the buried treasure from the jungle so that Jane is free to marry whoever she pleases. However, Jane is worried about the differences between herself and Tarzan and fears that their marriage might not be successful. She feels bound by her previous promises to marry William Cecil Clayton instead. While the fingerprint analysis has confirmed that Tarzan is Lord Greystroke, he chooses not to reveal that information and allows William Cecil Clayton to marry Jane.