Born in Chicago in 1875, he tried his hand at many businesses without notable success, until at the age of thirty-five, he turned to writing. With the publication of _Tarzan of the Apes_ and _A Princess of Mars_, his career was assured. The gratitude of a multitude of readers who found in his imagination exactly the kind of escape reading they loved assured him of a well-earned fortune. By the time of his death, in 1950, at his home in a town bearing the name of his brain child, Tarzana, California, his name was a byword in literature. Over 40,000,000 copies of his books have appeared in 58 different languages.