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Discovery of Correspondence with 'Tarzan' Author Edgar Rice Burroughs Leads to Duke Professor's New Book

Matt Cohen's Great-Grandfather had 50-Year Correspondence with Burroughs

Matt Cohen was visiting his mother and grandmother in Nebraska when talk turned to his Ph.D. dissertation. He told them about his research on masculinity and bachelorhood in the 19th century.

Gee, his mother and grandmother wondered, maybe you'd be interested in the Burroughs letters down in the Navy ammunition box in the basement.

Indeed he was -- the collection in the old trunk turned out to be a 50-year correspondence between Cohen's great-grandfather and "Tarzan" author Edgar Rice Burroughs.

"You can imagine how I felt," Cohen said. "It was this huge, fat collection. There were letters, drawings, postcards, telegrams, photographs and, at some point, there were films, though those are now gone."

Six years later, Cohen, now an assistant professor of English at Duke University, has compiled the rich collection into "Brother Men: The Correspondence of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Herbert T. Weston," published this month by Duke University Press. It is the first critical edition of any of Burroughs' letters.

Cohen's great-grandfather, Herbert T. Weston, and Edgar Rice Burroughs met at military school in Michigan in the 1890s and maintained a friendship that lasted until Burroughs' death in 1950. Their lives were very different: Burroughs was an internationally famous, world-traveling writer and businessman who wrote, in addition to "Tarzan of the Apes," more than 60 novels. He founded the town of Tarzana, Calif., and was involved in the movie and television productions of his work.

Weston, on the other hand, returned to his hometown of Beatrice, Neb., after attending Yale University and serving in the military. He entered into enterprises owned by his family and his wife's family, including the local bank and corn mills, large amounts of farmland and a Wyoming coal field.

Despite these different circumstances, the two men remained close and, except for a five-year silence after Burroughs divorced his first wife, the correspondence continued throughout their lives. The letters create a picture of men's friendships, self-image and identity in the first half of the 20th century, Cohen said. He said he hopes the book adds to the body of scholarship on subjects from gender to popular culture to early 20th century boxing and wrestling.

"What you see when you read these letters together is that business and family and friendship were all intertwined for these guys," Cohen said. "It shows a picture of male intimacy in the Teddy Roosevelt era."

Although Burroughs was one of the first internationally popular writers and has a devoted fan base, this is the first academic book of his letters to be published.

"Back in the '20s, when Tarzan went global, there was no legal protection for that. You couldn't brand a character," Cohen said. Burroughs came up with a unique solution: He created ERB Inc., a corporation that would own and control the rights to all his work. The corporation -- which remains in Burroughs family hands today -- tightly controls use and access to Burroughs' materials.

Although he didn't know any of this when he opened up the old box in his grandmother's basement, Cohen quickly learned the legalities of using Burroughs letters, and was able to work with ERB Inc. to publish the book. Some of the materials in it come from the ERB collection as well.

Danton Burroughs, Edgar Rice Burroughs' grandson, said he was interested to see a new side of the larger-than-life figure he had known as a child.

"A lot of time and effort went into this book. I'm very impressed. It was quite enjoyable for me to see a different side of my grandfather through his best friend and through his letters," Burroughs said. "My grandfather led the life of a few individuals -- he had tremendous energy and drive. I'm in wonder as to how he was a family man, he traveled, he did the business, he wrote the books, he did the scripts, he wrote the movies he was all-encompassing.

"This is different side of him [in the letters.] He was so down to earth, such a good family man, he loved his kids and was proud of each and every one of his kids."

Danton Burroughs remembers weekly visits to his grandfather's house, when family members would set up the movie projector and dip into the ERB archive.

"Dad would select anything from the 1918 Tarzan right up to the Weissmuller classics. That left a hell of an impression on me. Those are cherished memories," he said.

But Cohen also found that delving into your own family history is a different kind of project than the typical academic book.

"Writing about your own people is hard," he said. "There's a lot of detail about my family in here. In a lot of these letters my great-grandfather doesn't look so good."

Some of the letters are racist, for example, and they also reflect the class attitudes of the day.

"The things I say about Burroughs may not be music to the ears of fans," he said.

The collection also is rare because, in many cases, Weston kept copies of his letters to Burroughs, as well as the replies. This meant that Cohen had an unusually complete set of correspondence.

Although Cohen had a vague memory of the family connections to the famous writer -- he remembers the set of Burroughs' signed works sitting in the den where he used to watch television -- he needed his family's help to put the letters together.

"I'd read 10 or 15 letters and call my grandma and say, 'Do you remember so-and-so who lived on such-and-such street?' That starts conversations with your grandmother you never thought you'd have," he said.

He might need to keep that line to grandma open -- Danton Burroughs said there's enough in the ERB archives for several more volumes.

"I've found so many more letters," Burroughs said. "I hope that he's considering a sequel."