First-edition Tarzan novel for sale

THE Beasts of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs will be among the collectable books on offer at the Antiquarian on-line book auction that started yesterday on www.antiquarianauctions.com/auction.

Published by AC McClurg and Company, Chicago in 1916 this first edition has a reserve price of $5,000. It is in the completely unrestored first-issue dust jacket.

According to the catalogue, Beasts of Tarzan is the third novel in Burroughs’ series of Tarzan adventure stories.

At the start of the novel, Tarzan is living in England as the wealthy Lord Greystoke. After his wife and son are abducted, Tarzan returns to the wild to recover his family and unleash a vicious animal vengeance on the perpetrators.

Tarzan is the son of a British lord and lady who were marooned on the west coast of Africa by mutineers. When Tarzan is a year old, his mother died of natural causes, and his father is killed by Kerchak, leader of the ape tribe into which Tarzan is adopted.

Hollywood filmed a number of Tarzan novels and Olympic swimmer Johnny Weissmuller was the most popular actor in the Tarzan roles.

He appeared in all the Tarzan films in the 1930s and 1940s.

Of interest is a copy of the King James Bible published in 1762. According to the frontispiece, the Bible, “contains the Old and New testaments: Newly translated out of the Original Tongues, and with the former translations diligently compared and revised, by His Majesty’s special command. Appointed to be read in Churches.”

In spite of this adulation of King James, it was largely as a result of agitation by the Puritans that he appointed a board of scholars to make a new English translation of the Bible. What became known as the King James authorised version was completed in 1611.

Edition: First “Standard Edition”. Reserve: $3,000.