1883 Tarzan Of The Apes

Date:  January 1, 1883, through August 31, 1883

Event:  At age ten, Tarzan managed to enter his father's cabin for the first time. He killed a gorilla, after being attacked, while leaving. The near-dead ape boy was rescued and nursed back to health by Kala.

Source:  "Age ten," ERB-Tarzan Of The Apes.

Chat: Although ERB describes numerous events while the ape boy is ten, he does not provide precise dates. Therefore, any dating provided is theory only, and not provided by ERB. With that said, one can logically assume, as a working framework, that in the first part of ten the ape boy was active until the fight with the gorilla. The back side of ten would be surviving and recovering from that fight.

    As a working date only, I theorized all of Tarzan's active events occurred in 1882, with the gorilla fight occurring on December 31, 1892. Keeping things simple, that would give the ape boy, still age ten, from January 1, 1893, to August 31, 1883, to survive and recover from the near-death experience.

    When having no provided data we keep in the tradition of ERB himself, and resort to the Burroughs family genealogy for a working date until other research provides a better one. Checking for December or January working dates, we discover Studley Oldham was born on December 26, 1892, which is a perfect fit. That will be the working date for the battle with the gorilla.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

James Michael Moody is a lifelong fan and collector of Edger Rice Burroughs. Moody has contributed over two hundred articles to various ERB-related fanzines over forty-five years. He also manages an unauthorized Tarzan blog titled, Greystoke Chronologist: James Michael Moody. There the researcher chronologies the Tarzan books starting in May 1872 (known as the pushback theory) instead of the more accepted date, May 1888.

James Michael Moody is also the author of the action-packed Sci-Fi fantasy adventure Unium series. Pioneers On Unium, published December 31, 2019, Exiled On Unium, published August 25, 2022, and Swordsman On Unium, published July 15, 2024.