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Paul Stahr: War Chief - title page anonymous artist -  no FP
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THE WAR CHIEF
ERB began work on this in August 1926
Working title: The War Chief of the Apaches
E-TEXT EDITION


PUBLISHING HISTORY (USA)

PULP
(Argosy) All-Story Weekly: April 16, 23, 30 1927 ~ May 7, 14, 1927
    Paul Stahr front cover on first installment ~ Roger B. Morrison: one b/w interior per installment
FIRST EDITION
McClurg: September 15, 1927 ~ Glossary at end of book ~ 382 pages ~ 1st Ed. Print Run: 6,000 ~ Total: 48,500 ~ Heins word count: 79,000
    Paul Stahr DJ illustration same as on the pulp cover ~ Decorated title page by unknown author ~ Apache profile on cover & spine
REPRINT EDITIONS
Grosset & Dunlap ~ 1928 ~ same illustrations as first edition ~ 383 pages with glossary
Ballantine paperback ~ June 1964 ~ 190 pages with glossary
    Ronnie M. Lessor cover art
Gregg hard cover ~ 1978 ~ 382 pages with glossary
    Paul Stahr adapted cover art ~ no interior art
Ballantine paperback ~ February 1973 ~ 190 pages with glossary
    Frank McCarthy cover art
Ballantine paperback ~ October 1975 ~ 215 pages with glossary
    Greg and Tim Hildebrandt cover art
 
 
For detailed information, see Robert B. Zeuschner's
Edgar Rice Burroughs: The Bibliography (ERB, Inc., 2016).
Click on www.erbbooks.com or call 214-405-6741 to order a copy.

Apache Series
The War Chief is a realistic historical novel about life and death on an Apache reservation during the final years of the Apache wars until the death of Cochise and the surrender of Geronimo.

The story focuses on Andy MacDuff, an infant kidnapped by the Apaches in a raid, adopted by Geronimo and renamed Shoz-Dijiji, or Black Bear. He is given a proper Apache upbringing, including initiation into all the rites and responsibilities of Indian Manhood. He excels at the crucial skills of hunting and warfare, shows himself to be strong and courageous, and soon is made a highly prized war chief. During his apprenticeship, Shoz-Dijiji falls in love with Ish-Kay-Nay, an Apache maiden, who, unfortunately is coveted by another Apache chief, Juh, who hates Shoz-Dijiji for being Geronimo's favorite.

Burroughs' great respect for the West and compassion for the exploitative treatment of the Indians the hands of the treacherous pin-dah-lickoyee ("white eyes") is manifested throughout this honest, vivid, and sympathetic portrait of the West that does credit to both the Indians and Edgar Rice Burroughs.


Apache Devil: Shoz-Dijiji, or Black Bear, kidnapped by the Apaches from his white pioneer family as an infant and raised by Geronimo, is now a brave and accomplished Apache War Chief. In addition to the skills of hunting and warfare he has learned to hate violently the pin-dah-lickoyee ("white eyes") from witnessing their consistently wretched treatments of the Apaches: violation of treaties, forced imprisonment on reservations, and economic exploitation. Shoz-Dijiji is also embittered by bereavement over the death of a young Indian maiden he had loved. He becomes notorious as the blood thirsty Apache Devil a daring and intrepid raider, His adventures bring him together with Wichita Billings, a tough-minded white frontier girl, and they reluctantly fall in love, despite seeming culture and racial differences. But the main action of the novel is the final pursuit and surrender of Geronimos to General Miles chronicled here in grim and realistic detail. APACHE DEVIL is remarkable for it's honest and sympathetic treatment of Apache life at a time when almost everyone else portrayed the Apaches as devil incarnate; it is an epic worthy of Apache Devil an exciting but tragic era of American history.
.
SOURCES OF BACKGROUND INFORMATION IN ERB'S APACHE NOVELS
Burroughs drew upon his personal experiences with the U.S. 7th Cavalry
He also cited the following books and periodicals 
as being among the reference materials he used:
The Marvellous Country: Three Years in Arizona and New Mexico, the Apache's Home by Samuel Woodworth Cozzens 1873
Thrilling Days in Army Life by General. George. A. Forthsyth 1900
Lives of Famous Indian Chiefs by Norman B. Wood
The Frontier Trail by Colonel Homer W. Wheeler
The Land of Poco Tiampo by Charles. F. Lummis
Geronimo's Story of His Life by S.M. Barrett, 1907
Trailing Geronimo: The Outbreak of the White Mountain Apaches, 1881 - 1886  by Anton Mazzanovich
Life Among the Apaches by John Carey Cremony
Apache Medicine-Men by John G. Bourke
"Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution"
"Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology"
Edgar Rice Burroughs Comments On The War Chief

Danton Burroughs found the following note with the manuscript for The War Chief:

"I have gone over the 'copy' carefully and have indicated a number of phrases, sentences and paragraphs deleted by them, which I wish to have retained.

The preparation of the manuscript required considerable research work and as it is necessary for the reader to be able to understand the viewpoint of the Indian, if he is to be in sympathy with the principal character, it is essential that much of the matter deleted should remain even though it draws comparisons that may be odious to some people of our own race and sometimes shocking to people whose religious convictions are particularly strong. 

I should also call your attention to an Indian name and an Indian word concerning which the magazine editor and I seem not to agree. 

The name is that of a famous Apache Chief, Mangas Colorado, variously spelled Mangus and Magnus. From a very old book I obtained the suggestion of the derivation of this name, which in Spanish means colored sleeves. The author supposed that the name may have been given to him by the Mexicans, either because of the garment he wore with colored sleeves or from the fact that his sleeves or arms were stained with the blood of his victims. 
The other word to which I refer is Izzo-Kolth, which the magazine editor insisted on changing to Izze-Colth. My authority for this spelling is an article by John G. Bourke, THE MEDICINE MAN OF THE APACHES, which appeared in the annual report of the Bureau of Ethnology for 1887 and 1888. 

The magazine editor deleted what evidently appeared to him tiresome descriptions of Indian customs, such as burial ceremonies and the decoration of the bodies of medicine men, but as there is not a great of this and I believe that it is all based on good authority, it should be permitted to remain."


COVER GALLERY

Argosy All-Story: April 16, 1927 - War Chief 1/5

Ballantine edition with Ronnie M. Lessor cover artBallantine Edition: Frank McCarthy cover artBallantine edition with Hildebrandt cover
Japanese edition


The War Chief (inscribed). 
Chicago: A. C. McClurg, 1927. 
First edition inscribed by Edgar Rice Burroughs. 
Magnificent full page inscription by ERB two weeks 
after first day of publication of War Chief . 
Writing to his older brother, Frank Coleman Burroughs
just a few years before the beginning of the Great Depression, 
Burroughs laments: 

"Dear Coleman, 
If real estate is moving as slowly along the North Shore as it is in Tarzana, 
you will have plenty of time to read this latest from the Underwood of 
your affectionate brother Ed 

To F. Coleman Burroughs 10/4-27" 

 



Click for full-size collages


Written by Martin Powell and illustrated by Nik Poliwko.
Subscribe at:
http://www.edgarriceburroughs.com/comics

.


Web Refs
Bill Hillman's Illustrated ERB Bibliography
ERB C.H.A.S.E.R. Online Encyclopedia
Hillman ERB Cosmos
Patrick Ewing's First Edition Determinors
John Coleman Burroughs Tribute
Edgar Rice Burroughs: LifeLine Biography
Bob Zeuschner's ERB Bibliography
J.G. Huckenpohler's ERB Checklist
Burroughs Bibliophiles Bulletin
G. T. McWhorter's Burroughs Bulletin Index
Illustrated Bibliography of ERB Pulp Magazines
Phil Normand's Recoverings
ERBzine Weekly Online Fanzine
ERB Emporium: Collectibles ~ Comics ~ BLBs ~ Pulps ~ Cards
ERBVILLE: ERB Public Domain Stories in PDF
Clark A. Brady's Burroughs Cyclopedia
Heins' Golden Anniversary Bibliography of Edgar Rice Burroughs
Bradford M. Day's Edgar Rice Burroughs: A Bibliography
Irwin Porges: The Man Who Created Tarzan

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