*Edgar Rice Burroughs is one of the world's most popular authors. With no previous experience as an author, he wrote and sold his first novel- A Princess of Mars- in 1912. In the ensuing thirty-eight years until his death in 1950, Burroughs wrote 91 books and a host of short stories and articles. Although best known as the creator of the classic Tarzan of the Apes and John Carter of Mars, his restless imagination knew few bounds. Burroughs' prolific pen ranged from the American West to primitive Africa and on to romantic adventures on the moon, the planets, and even beyond the farthest star. No one knows how many copies of ERB books have been published throughout the world. It is conservative to say, however, that of the translations into 32 known languages, including Braille, the numbers must run into the hundreds of millions. *Excerpted from the Ballantine Books editions copyright 1982