“Edgar Rice Burroughs was, and is, the

most influential writer, bar none, of our century.”

That statement was made by the famous Ray Bradbury referencing a man that, by his own admission, had failed at nearly every enterprise he tried.  Finally at the age of 35, Edgar Burroughs would find some much needed success.  As a young boy, Burroughs attended a half dozen public and private schools before he finally graduated from Michigan Military Academy, which he      described as “a polite reform school.”  He failed the entrance examination to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point so he enlisted as a private in the 7th U.S. Cavalry, thinking that if he distinguished himself in a difficult assignment then he might still obtain a commission as an officer.  He asked to be sent to the worst post in America, a request the authorities gladly and speedily granted.  The post was Fort Grant in the Arizona desert and his mission, as he liked to say, was to “chase the Apaches.”  “I chased a good many Apaches, but fortunately for me I never caught up with any of them.”  It was not long before Private Burroughs had had his fill of the chase and decided to turn to his father for help.  His father, a Civil War veteran who had much pull, arranged Burroughs’ discharge through political friends.  Some accounts say he was diagnosed with a heart problem and thus ineligible to serve and was discharged in 1897...

Read the article in its entirety in the May 2014 Bevil newsletter, which accompanies the cover.