The Return Of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

The Return Of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Hardcover book published by Methuen & Co. 1950, 246 pages.

The Son Of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Hardcover book published by Methuen & Co. 1950, 245 pages.

Jungle Tales of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Hardcover book published by Methuen & Co. 1949, 250 pages.

The Return of Tarzan is a novel written by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the second in his series of books about the title character Tarzan.  The novel picks up where Tarzan of the Apes left off. The ape man, feeling rootless in the wake of his noble sacrifice of his prospects of wedding Jane Porter, leaves America for Europe to visit his friend Paul d'Arnot. On the ship he becomes embroiled in the affairs of Countess Olga de Coude, her husband, Count Raoul de Coude, and two shady characters attempting to prey on them, Nikolas Rokoff and his henchman Alexis Paulvitch. Rokoff, it turns out, is also the countess's brother. Tarzan thwarts the villains' scheme, making them his deadly enemies. etc

The Son of Tarzan, the fourth in his series of books about the title character Tarzan. Alexis Paulvitch, a henchman of Tarzan's now-deceased enemy, Nikolas Rokoff, survived his encounter with the ape-man in The Beasts of Tarzan and wants to even the score. He lures Jack, Tarzan's son, away from London and into his clutches, but the youngster escapes with the help of the ape named Akut. etc

Jungle Tales of Tarzan is a collection of twelve loosely connected short stories, comprising the sixth book in order of publication in his series about the title character Tarzan. Chronologically the events recounted in it occur within Chapter 11 of the first Tarzan novel, Tarzan of the Apes, between Tarzan's avenging of his ape foster mother's death and his becoming leader of his ape tribe.

These volumes caught my attention mainly because they still have their dust jackets. Sure, they are just hanging in there but dust jackets they are and pulpy artwork they have. I've put some nice removable plastic around them and they now look like a million $... ummmm... maybe not quite. They do look better than without the plastic and as a bookseller I feel fairly confident that whilst they are on my shelves they wont deteriorate any further.

3 Tarzans, none of them firsts. That's OK. I'm happy to have anything from this era and genre as I am aware that even these later editions are sort of sought after, mainly by those wishing to relive their teen and young adult reading experiences. Yes, nostalgia for a by gone time when Tarzan was Tarzan and Jane was Jane... and the ape was the ape... and the dark side was just a glint in George Lucas's eye.

I haven't read any Tarzan, but I have read some of Edgar Rice Burroughs' science fiction novels and have enjoyed them. The martian series is one of those reading experiences that I occasionally consider and then decide that later would be a good time to consider again. I did see the recent movie (“John Carter” 2012) and despite it bombing at the box office, I quite enjoyed it. Tarzan movies are another thing that I have encountered over the years and if you look them up on the interwebs, you'll see that there are a lot of them and as with many of my generation, they all sort of got drummed into us via TV repeats over the school holidays. Sadly I can't remember a single one of them, they probably weren't that sort of film. I think there was a TV series as well... All of which i'm sure has helped create more nostalgia for Tarzan the ape man.