LOS ANGELES — The U.S. Postal Service has provided a sneak peak at some of its 2012 Forever stamp program, including a preview of a stamp honoring popular Los Angeles author Edgar Rice Burroughs, who invented the iconic character Tarzan.
Burroughs moved to the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles in 1919, purchasing a ranch and naming it Tarzana Ranch after his jungle hero. This land was originally part of the San Fernando Mission, established in 1797. Burroughs subdivided a portion of his land in 1923 for homes, known as Tarzana Tracts. In 1927 or ’28, residents voted to name their community Tarzana in honor of Burroughs and his famous character.
Tarzana grew slowly during the 1930s and early 1940s. After World War II, a postwar boom brought many new subdivisions and homes. Tarzana today is a district in the City of Los Angeles and home to 24,000 people.
Born in Chicago on Sept. 1, 1875, Burroughs served in the U.S. Cavalry, dredged for gold, worked as a door-to-door salesman, a railroad policeman and many other varied jobs before he published his first story “Under the Moon of Mars” in 1912. “Tarzan of the Apes” soon followed that same year, published in a pulp magazine. The Tarzan story was published in a book edition in 1914 and proved so popular that Burroughs continued the series with sequels published all the way into the 1940s.
During World War II, although in his late sixties, Burroughs served as a war correspondent in Hawaii. After the war, Burroughs moved back to Los Angeles, living in Encino. He died of a heart attack on March 19, 1950, having written almost 70 novels.
The Edgar Rice Burroughs stamp shows Tarzan, Burroughs’ famous literary creation, clinging to a tree by a vine with his left hand and wielding a weapon with his right. Burroughs appears in profile in the background. Hulbert Burroughs, the author’s son, took the 1934 photograph that served as a basis for the stamp. The depiction of Tarzan is an interpretation of the character by artist Sterling Hundley of Chesterfield, VA, under the direction of Art Director Phil Jordan of Falls Church, VA.
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