Erbzine.com Homepage
The First and Only Weekly Online Fanzine Devoted to the Life and Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs
Since 1996 ~ Over 15,000 Webpages in Archive
Volume 0863
and
ERB C.H.A.S.E.R ENCYCLOPEDIA
A Collector's Hypertexted and Annotated Storehouse of Encyclopedic Resources
Present
Jeff Jones: I Am A Barbarian - FP
I AM A BARBARIAN
Written April-September 1941

PUBLISHING HISTORY (USA)

PULP
No pulp release
FIRST EDITION
Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. ~ September 1, 1967 ~ Only 2000 copies were printed ~ 287 pages
    Jeff Jones: Dust Jacket and Frontispiece
REPRINT EDITIONS
Ace Books paperback ~ September 1967 ~ 287 pages
    Boris Vallejo: 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.

 
I Am A Barbarian
Son of a great and defiant chief in far-off Britain, to the haughty Romans I was just another young barbarian. In the decadence of Imperial Rome I faced death time and again in the gladitorial arena, in the chariot races, in the twisted hearts of palaces and always at the hand of my master, mad Caligula, the bloodiest Roman of them all. Someday I would have my revenge. After our capture by the Romans, we were taken to the camp of Germanicus, and he looked us over. His wife, Agrippina, was there with a little brat about four years old, hanging on to her tunic. Suddenly the brat tugged at his mother and said, "I want", pointing at me. A centurion was about to lead us away, when Agrippina stopped him with an imperious gesture. "Hold! Caligula wishes the young barbarian. Take it away, burn that filthy wolf skin it is wearing, scrub it, and bring it to my tent. ” I saw my mother's lip tremble, but she kept her head up. Father didn't even flick an eyelash. I never saw them again, but for the one time in Rome. I then dedicated my life to one purpose vengeance. Someday I would kill Caesar.


ART GALLERY


As my car rolled over I cut myself loose.
click for large image 
Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.: 1st Edition


Alternate Unpublished Frontispiece
click for large image



Click for large images

Boris Vallejo Ace paperback editionJapanese Edition of I'm a Barbarian
.

Art by Boris

.
.
Japanese Edition



The above interior art is from the Japanese edition



ERB-dom No. 43 ~ February 1971
Cover art by Bill Stout

Alternate I Am A Barbarian Cover
Bill Stout Illustration
.
A Gallery of I Am A Barbarian Art by Bill Stout
.

I Am a Barbarian
By Edgar Rice Burroughs (Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc., 1967)

[I wrote this review a few years ago and it appeared on a website, but it seems to have vanished into the ether of time on the Internet. Considering my recent run on ERB material, and that I’m currently reading and preparing a review for the “companion” novel to this one, Tarzan and “The Foreign Legion”, I felt I needed to revive this overview.]

Edgar Rice Burroughs, inventor of Tarzan and John Carter of Mars—and by extension the pulp magazines as we know them—wrote I Am a Barbarian in 1941, when his creative forces appeared spent. He had started his final series, the disappointing and creatively stagnant Venus/Amtor novels, in 1932. The Tarzan adventures limped along, and the once superb Martian series had sputtered out. He wrote only one more complete novel after this one, Tarzan and “The Foreign Legion.” The entry of the United States into World War II prompted Burroughs to take a job as a war correspondent, reducing the time he devoted to writing (or, more accurately, dictating) fiction. I Am a Barbarian did not see print until 1967, nineteen years after the author’s death, when the company he created, ERB Inc., released it in a limited edition of two hundred hardcover books. It soon appeared in a mass-market paperback edition with a gorgeous Boris Vallejo illustration adorning the front (seen here). But it remains one of Burroughs’s least-known works, and even with the recent publication of quality editions of his books, I Am a Barbarian still languishes out of print.

This is an unfortunate situation, because I Am a Barbarian rates as one of the author’s best-written works, and it differs substantially from the standard adventure fare that made him famous but eventually turned stale. Perhaps Burroughs’s had simply tired of the chase-and-escape formula that he had relied on with so many other novels and wanted try something different. The virile title immediately suggests Burroughs business-as-usual, but this isn’t a “barbarian” adventure like a Tarzan novel or The Eternal Savage. It’s a fictionalized historical biography, essentially Burroughs’s version of Robert Graves’s I, Claudius. (Naming it I, Barbarian, would have been a touch too obvious, but I Am a Barbarian certainly comes close.)

Graves’s immensely popular historical novel, published seven years earlier to great acclaim, told the first-person account of the early Julio-Claudian Roman emperors Augustus, Tiberius, and Caius. I Am a Barbarian uses the identical concept and time period, while slanting it more toward its author’s talents. Instead of viewing ancient Rome through the eyes of a future emperor, Burroughs describes it through the view of a hardened Briton slave. He also narrows the focus to that of one emperor: Caius Caesar, the mad despot better known by his childhood nickname “Caligula” (“Little Boot”).

As he did in many of his works, Burroughs uses a preface to create the illusion of veracity. The Foreword claims that the book is a “free translation of the memoirs of Britannicus, for twenty-five years the slave of Caius Caesar Caligula, emperor of Rome from A.D. 37 to 41,” and lists real sources used to authentic the “facts.” Burroughs does a fine job of maintaining the illusion of Britannicus’s historic voice and presents a realistic look at ancient Rome. The dialogue sometimes slips into Americanized slang, like “nuts!” and “fat chance,” but otherwise Burroughs’s prose stays faithful to its narrator and period.

Most of the novel occurs during the rule of Tiberius Caesar (14–37 C.E.) and concludes with Caligula’s brief but gory reign (37–41 C.E.). The narrator is Britannicus, a slave from Briton whom the young Caligula demanded as his personal servant. Britannicus lives at the whim of this petulant Caesar and his hateful mother, Agrippina, granddaughter of the beloved first emperor, Caesar Augustus. Britannicus has an amicable relationship with Caligula—one of strangest male relationships in the Burroughs canon—but one immersed in tension. Because of the cruel murders of his parents after the Romans captured them, Britannicus swears that one day he will “kill a Caesar.” Readers should have no trouble deducing which Caesar he has in mind.

Black comic satire of the decadence of Rome—or more specifically the decadence of the Julio-Claudians—dominates the book, and Burroughs shows a knack for the brand of biting humor that he rarely got to practice in his other works. Britannicus spares no opportunity to criticize his masters: “From birth, apparently, all the male children in both lines had that idea impressed upon them—to grow up and become an emperor and be poisoned and stabbed in the back. It always seemed to me a ridiculous ambition.” He describes the hateful Agrippina:

Her pride in the Julian blood stemmed from the fact that the family was supposed to have descended directly from a goddess: Venus. But why that should have been anything to boast of, I do not know. Had I been descended from Venus, I should have kept the matter very quiet. She had been a notoriously loose woman, appallingly promiscuous.
Although Britannicus is a barbarian slave among the aristocracy of Rome, he has his own trace of snobbery. He takes pride in his heritage from Cingetorix, the King of Kent (mentioning it innumerable times), and disdains the plebs of Rome as much as he hates the tainted aristocracy. Like Robert E. Howard, Burroughs shows an appreciation of the moral clarity of the barbarian, but he also had a streak of elitism that percolates through his writing, and this book is no exception.

During the twenty-five years that I Am a Barbarian covers, the story switches between the political jockeying, murdering, and general vileness of the Julio-Claudians and the personal life of Britannicus. Britannicus forms important friendships and develops into an excellent charioteer, while the family that owns him tries to maneuver their children onto the Emperor’s throne when the aged Tiberius finally dies. The emphasis is on character and style instead of action, which might disappoint fans of Burroughs’s early fast-paced adventures. The action passages, which include a deadly chariot race, a battle in the Coliseum with a tiger, and a tense near-crucifixion, are very exciting. But the book’s effectiveness stems from Burroughs’s readable style and the fun he has with the sarcastic commentary on Roman decadence.

Burroughs still stumbles over some of his favorite overused devices. He hauls out a chestnut that originates back in his first novel, A Princess of Mars: the frustrated but idealized romantic pursuit. The love that Britannicus has for the slave girl Attica, who spurns him frequently just because she can, feels too similar to the frustrated romantic chases in Tarzan of the Apes, At the Earth’s Core, Thuvia, Maid of Mars, and many others. A love triangle between Brittannicus, Attica, and charioteer Numerius has no genuine tension because Britannicus and Numerius remain friendly with each other in their rivalry.

Burroughs sometimes relies too heavily on his sources, especially I, Claudius. He enumerates the terrors of the Caligula’s reign in a rote fashion, as if he simply had I, Claudius and Suetonius’s Lives of the Twelve Caesars open in front of him and copied off the mad emperor’s “greatest hits.” All of Caligula’s famed sayings and atrocities—”Off comes this head whenever I give the word,” “Let them hate provided they are afraid,” random slayings of men with more hair than he, nominating his favorite horse to the Senate—get ticked off the list one-by-one. As interesting as Caligula’s madness is, in these passages the book gets too distanced from Britannicus and too imbedded in the blood-red splashes of history. Burroughs does finally weave the romance with Attica into Caligula’s story with a thrilling chariot race and the passionate, bloody conclusion.

Fans and admirers of Edgar Rice Burroughs who have yet to experience I Am a Barbarian should seek it out. Despite the novel’s flaws (and what Burroughs’s novel isn’t flawed?) it will remind readers that the man from Tarzana was a far more talented and varied writer than his critics—and some of his fans—ever imagined. 

REVIEW AT THE MANAPOP SITE
I Am A Barbarian is only one of two historical fictions written by Burroughs, the other being The Outlaw of Torn, but unlike Torn this novel slavishly follows historical fact. Though written in 1941 this novel wasn’t published until 1967 after Burroughs’ death and in my opinion probably one of the weakest of his novels.

The story is in the form of memoirs written by Britannicus a barbarian who lived the bulk of his life as slave to Caligula the mad Roman that became an even crazier Emperor. Our protagonists was enslaved at about the age of ten to be the playmate of then six year old Caligula or “Little Boots” as the military called him. To those uninitiated to this fascinating time period the book is very informative as we learns about the genetically predisposed madness of the Julian family, epilepsy and madness key factors, and the political maneuvering that resulted in many assassination plots. Unfortunately the majority of the book reads like a history lesson and not the fun pulp adventure one expects from Burroughs. Britannicus is the reader’s window into this world of palace intrigue and devolving sanity but as the events of this time period are fairly well documented our protagonist is limited in what he can or can’t affect. This severely hamstrings Burroughs’ ability as a storyteller.

Aside from the numerous nonfiction characters we are introduced to a few fun fictional ones; there is  ex-gladiator Tibur who is a monster of a man and brutal fighter but who becomes a good friend to young Britannicus and even Caligula, then there is Numerious a charioteer who becomes an even closer friend to Britannicus which is unusual to say the least as they are both madly in love with the beautiful slave girl Attica. The relationship between Britannicus, Numerious and Attica is easily the books strongest element but it is unfortunately a rather small element compared to the litany of crimes and foul deeds of Caligula that Burroughs recounts in great detail.  Most surprising is Burroughs’ writings of Caligula’s debauchery and insane murderous whims which come across rather dryly to the point of tedium.  Considering we’re talking Caligula here that’s pretty bad.

From the title one would assume we would be getting something like a cross between Ben Hur and Conan the Barbarian but our “hero” barely gets anything to do; he saves Attica from a couple of assailants and later with the help of Tibur saves her from the beasts in the Coliseum but that’s it. I’m not saying every Burroughs hero has to be John Carter or Tarzan but in the case of I Am a Barbarian all we get is a passive observer who barley impacts anything at all, and that isn’t something one expects with a book with this title.

So if you are a fan of Burroughs, and like me enjoy reading about the Roman Empire, you may get some enjoyment out of this, but if you are looking for a thrilling adventure story your best bet is to check out any of his other books including the aforementioned Outlaw of Torn which is also historically based but a hell of a lot more fun.


Click for full-size sample page
Just one of 20 online comics from Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.
Splendid serial adaptations of ERB novels adapted by top writers and artists.
Read them all every week for only $1.99 per month from:
www.edgarriceburroughs.com/comics




Click for full-size Promo Splash Bar


RECOMMENDED LINKS
ERB C.H.A.S.E.R. Online Encyclopedia
Hillman ERB Cosmos
Patrick Ewing's First Edition Determinors
John Coleman Burroughs Tribute
J. Allen St. John Bio, Gallery & Links
Edgar Rice Burroughs: LifeLine Biography
Bob Zeuschner's ERB Bibliography
J.G. Huckenpohler's ERB Checklist
Burroughs Bibliophiles Bulletin
ERB Illustrated Pulp Bibliography
Novel Summary by Galloway, Adams, 
Huckenpohler, Bozarth, Savage, Herr
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
Irwin Porges: ERB: The Man Who Created Tarzan
Clark A. Brady's Burroughs Cyclopedia
Heins' Golden Anniversary Bibliography of Edgar Rice Burroughs
Bradford M. Day's Edgar Rice Burroughs: A Bibliography

Armada of ERB Web Sites
Over 15,000 Webpages
The Fantastic Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs
Tarzan.com
Tarzan.com
ERBzine Weekly Webzine
ERBzine.com
Danton Burroughs Website: Tarzana Treasure Vaults
DantonBurroughs.com
Tarzan.org
Tarzan.org
Burroughs Bibliophiles
BurroughsBibliophiles.com
John Coleman Burroughs Tribute Site
JohnColemanBurroughs.com
Tarzine: Official Monthly Webzine of ERB, Inc.
Tarzan.com/tarzine
John Carter of Mars
JohnCarterOfMars.ca
Edgar Rice Burroughs
www.erbzine.com/edgarriceburroughs
ERBzine Weekly Webzine
Weekly Webzine
Danton Burroughs Weekly Webzine
Weekly Webzine
Pellucidar
Pellucidar.org

John Carter Film News

ERB, Inc. Corporate Site

ERB Centennial

tarzana.ca
BACK TO ERB C.H.A.S.E.R. NAVIGATION CHART

BackForward
Volume 0863


BILL HILLMAN
Visit our thousands of other sites at:
BILL and SUE-ON HILLMAN ECLECTIC STUDIO
All ERB Images© and Tarzan® are Copyright ERB, Inc.- All Rights Reserved.
All Original Work © 1996-2002/2017/2022 by Bill Hillman and/or Contributing Authors/Owners
No part of this web site may be reproduced without permission from the respective owners.