Tarzan The Terrible

Take a walk on the wild side with Tarzan the Terrible. In this, the eighth entry in Edgar Rice Burroughs' renowned series about the mighty man-ape who reigns as the king of the jungle, Tarzan takes to the wider world to search out his missing companion Jane. In the process, he stumbles across a hidden valley that is home to a bewildering variety of creatures long thought to be extinct.

Cruel slave traders had invaded the jungle of Tarzan of the Apes. Now they were headed toward a fabled empire of riches which no outsider had ever seen, intent on looting. And toward the same legendary land was stumbling the lost James Blake, an American whom Tarzan had vowed to rescue. Following their spoors, the ape-man came upon the lost Valley of the Sepulcher, where Knights Templar still fought to resume their Holy Crusade to free Jerusalem.

Silent as the shadows through which he moved, the great beast slunk through the midnight jungle, his yellow-green eyes round and staring, his sinewy tail undulating behind him, his head lowered and flattened, and every muscle vibrant to the thrill of the hunt. The jungle moon dappled an occasional clearing which the great cat was always careful to avoid. Though he moved through thick verdure across a carpet of innumerable twigs, broken branches, and leaves, his passing gave forth no sound that might have been apprehended by dull human ears. Apparently less cautious was the hunted thing moving even as silently as the lion a hundred paces ahead of the tawny carnivore, for instead of skirting the moon-splashed natural clearings it passed directly across them, and by the tortuous record of its spoor it might indeed be guessed that it sought these avenues of least resistance, as well it might, since, unlike its grim stalker, it walked erect upon two feet—it walked upon two feet and was hairless except for a black thatch upon its head; its arms were well shaped and muscular; its hands powerful and slender with long tapering fingers and thumbs reaching almost to the first joint of the index fingers. Its legs too were shapely but its feet departed from the standards of all races of men, except possibly a few of the lowest races, in that the great toes protruded at right angles from the foot. Pausing momentarily in the full light of the gorgeous African moon the creature turned an attentive ear to the rear and then, his head lifted, his features might readily have been discerned in the moonlight. They were strong, clean cut, and regular—features that would have attracted attention for their masculine beauty in any of the great capitals of the world. But was this thing a man? It would have been hard for a watcher in the trees to have decided as the lion's prey resumed its way across the silver tapestry that Luna had laid upon the floor of the dismal jungle, for from beneath the loin cloth of black fur that girdled its thighs there depended a long hairless, white tail...

In the previous volume, the Lord of the Jungle discovered the burnt corpse of his wife, Jane, after a visit to his African home by German soldiers. (One suspects that Burroughs never did like Jane; this sort of thing happened to her a lot.) In this volume, Tarzan learns that Jane was not murdered by the Germans but kidnaped -- and sets off in pursuit. As the novel begins, Tarzan has spent two months tracking his mate to Pal-ul-don ("Land of Men"), a hidden valley in Zaire, where he finds a land dinosaurs and men even stranger -- humanoids with tails. Ta-den is a hairless, white-skinned, Ho-don warrior; O-mat is a hairy, black skinned, Waz-don, chief of the tribe of Kor-ul-ja. In this new world Tarzan becomes a captive -- but he impresses his captors so well that they name him Tarzan-Jad-Guru ("Tarzan the Terrible"). Meanwhile, a second visitor has come to Pal-ul-don -- wearing only a loin cloth and carrying an Enfield rifle along and a long knife. Pal-ul-don is where Jane is being held captive, of course. . .

Collected her in this mammoth oversized book are eight complete Tarzan novels by the master of pulp fiction Edgar Rice Burroughs. Include are Tarzan of the Apes, The Return of Tarzan, The Beasts of Tarzan, The Son of Tarzan, Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar, Jungle Tales of Tarzan, Tarzan the Untamed, and Tarzan The Terrible. Journey to an Africa that never was and join Tarzan in his many adventures in the deepest, darkest jungle.

In this 1921 adventure novel from the original Tarzan series, the ape man discovers a lost world of dinosaurs where his beloved Jane is being held captive. When World War I broke out across the African colonies, an attack on Tarzan’s estate led him to believe his wife Jane had been killed by Imperial German soldiers. But after a months-long rampage of vengeance, he learns she is in fact still alive—he only need find her. Before long, his search will take him from the modern threats of tanks and war planes into a land of prehistoric dangers. In the hidden valley of Pal-ul-don, dinosaurs continue to thrive, and the warrior tribes of the Ho-don and Waz-don—who appear to be human apart from their tails—are locked in bitter conflict. Somewhere in Pal-ul-don, Jane is being held captive. But to save her, Tarzan must survive a gauntlet of deadly enemies with a display of strength and skill that will earn him the name Tarzan the Terrible.