Review: I have a better than fair vocabulary but I did some clicking to ...
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 07 18, 2014
Anyone who has ever seen a Tarzan movie, even a Disney version, should spend some time reading the real thing.  Edgar Rice Burroughs was an eloquent, prolific writer.  He had a mastery of the English language.  He was not afraid to use words that common people would have to look up.  I have a better than fair vocabulary but I did some clicking to the dictionary while enjoying these books myself.  Still, his style is easy to read and he is a master of setting a mood and then bringing you with him to an emotional peak, then bringing some sort of happy ending that leaves you ready to go to the next adventure.  This compilation of his works had some books I had missed in years past and I have enjoyed MANY hours reading the words of this masterful writer.  There are a LOT of words in this collection too!  Considering the miniscule price this is one the greatest literary bargain I have ever come across!  I would be remiss though if I failed to mention something about the treatment of race in these books.  This is a sensitive subject and the times when these books were written, well, things were quite different then.  The author reflects the prejudices of his day in the writings presented here.  He makes broad statements about the attributes of different races, real races and imagined races, that we now know to be ridiculous and offensive today.  If you can suspend what you know to be true and put his work into it's place in history the mistaken "truths" of the past have some lessons for us today.  If nothing else it illustrates that we have made some strides toward racial equality since most of these books were penned.  The science fiction books he has written also require some leaps of reasoning when read in the light of what we know today.  I have been able to forgive his ignorance, ignore the real facts and remember that this is fiction, not fact, and to still find hours of enjoyable reading perusing the imagination of one of the great writers of the twentieth century.