by Danton Burroughs

I, Danton Burroughs, was only five years old when my Grandfather, Edgar Rice Burroughs, passed away in 1950, so my memories of him are from the perspective of a child. And growing up with the art to St. John hanging on the walls of our home and at the corporation that Ed created was not something that I paid much attention to.  One has to realize that when someone grows up with the familiar, they don't understand the importance that someone else might place upon it -- such as the fans of my grandfather's stories and St. John's illustrations for them -- until they are older and can listen or read what the fans have to say about them.

Also my father, John Coleman Burroughs, was an artist who illustrated some his father's books, so it wasn't unusual to me to have an artist around. It was just something he did -- although as someone who can't draw I was certainly amazed by his abilities.

It was Dad who first raised my consciousness about just how special J. Allen St. John was. He would often call to my attention, as I grew older, this or that St. John painting and why he thought it special. One such painting that especially intrigued him was St. John's illustration facing page 56 of the 1920 McClurg edition of Thuvia, Maid of Mars. "With a savage cry of triumph, Thar Ban disappeared down the black canyon of the Avenue of Quays." Dad so admired this illustration that he was inspired to copy it for himself -- so he could have an original of it hanging on his own wall!

By the time I actually went to work for the family corporation, I was developing quite an affection for St. John's art. It would have been impossible not to, since I was surrounded by it daily. And, during forays into our files to assist some of the various researchers who were writing about my grandfather, I began to gain an interest in the letters between St. John and Ed. It was wonderful to read just how enthusiastic Ed was about St. John's illustrations and how much St. John enjoyed doing them yet also to realize that my grandfather wasn't always so complimentary.

Ed disliked the face that St. John painted on John Carter for the dust jacket of The Warlord of Mars, stating that he would like it to be repainted because he felt it too effeminate! But his disagreements with what St. John did were few and far between.

"I have intended writing you after each new Tarzan book appeared, to tell you how much I liked your work. I understand that it is quite the thing for authors to rear up on their hind legs and tear their hair when they see how the illustrations have mutilated their ideas and characters, but not being a really literary person I am denied the emotions of the elect.

"I think you visualized the characters and scenes precisely as I did. If I could do the sort of work you do I would not change a line in any of the drawings. I think your work for Tarzan the Untamed is the finest I have ever seen in any book. Each character reflects the thought and interest and labor that were expended upon it, and so I wish not only to congratulate you but to thank you for helping to make a book which would sell on the strength of the illustrations alone, regardless of the text."

EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS
May 18, 1920 letter from ERB to St. John

Disappointingly, after Ed decided to leave A. C. McClurg and Company, who had published his novels for fifteen years, and join with Metropolitan Books, his partnership with St. John was on the wane. St. John illustrated only one of his books published by Metropolitan, Tarzan at the Earth's Core.

 Interestingly, I've always felt St. John's dust jacket painting for this book to be one of his finest Tarzan paintings, and the frontispiece is also especially nice, but Ed was a bit disappointed with it, stating in a letter to Max Elser of Metropolitan Books dated November 13, 1930:

"The criticism that I have to offer is one that you would have noted were you as familiar with the books as we are, that is the similarity in appearance of this jacket and that of Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle, a similarity which could have been obviated by changing the style and color of the lettering." It should be noted that Metropolitan Books asked Ed to forego his usual approval of art before publication because of time constraints, stating that "unfortunately J. Allen St. John has proved slow in getting out his work on the frontispiece and the jacket for Tarzan at the Earth's Core."

Two years later, when Ed decided to publish his own books under the imprint of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., his nephew Studley Oldham Burroughs wanted a chance to illustrate his uncle's stories. But Studley was under two handicaps: Ed was proving to be extremely critical of his work and Studley was having problems with alcoholism. Although he was eventually able to successfully combat this addiction, it was too late for him to continue beyond the four books for which Ed found his illustrations acceptable.






Possibly because the Great Depression had just gotten underway, Ed was trying to save as much money as he could on the illustrations for his books. So when he contacted St. John to see if he was interested in continuing to illustrate them, he impressed upon St. John the fact that they would have to be priced as low as he could afford to go. I personally think that, because he had received some correspondence from St. John almost begging to once again illustrate his stories, Ed may have felt he had some leverage to request low rates for the illustrations Whatever private thoughts existed between the two men, St. John eventually illustrated seven books under the imprint of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. before my dad took over illustrating them. Unfortunately, two of these books, Tarzan and the Lion Man and Lost on Venus, featured dust jacket art that had been dictated by Ed because he wanted something new and different to attract buyers. This proved a mistake since these newly designed jackets didn't achieve the desired affect and Ed later requested that the reprint of Tarzan and the Lion Man feature a differently designed dust jacket utilizing one of the interior illustrations. Even though St. John's dust jacket designs for these two books failed to attract the wider buying public that Ed wished, they were nevertheless still wonderfully art deco and quite charming because of their  differences to the look of his previous books.

While the corporation has most of the art that St. John painted for our books, Ed only acquired some of his original illustrations for eight of the twenty-five books he illustrated for A. C. McClurg. And some of these either disappeared over the years or were destroyed by the 1959 fire. The dust jacket painting for The Cave Girl was extensively damaged in this fire.

One of the truly interesting things I discovered while going through some of our files was the sample for the John Carter of Mars Sunday page that St. John drew for Randolph Hearst's King Features syndicate. Unfortunately, this, the only known copy of the work, was lost sometime during the production of the Edgar Rice Burroughs Library of Illustration published by Russ Cochran. There is some indication that St. John had trouble getting the original returned. It is conceivable that the original could still be in Hearst's or King Features' possession.

However, there is enough material in our correspondence files that one can get an idea of what it may have been like. King Features sent St. John a portion of The Gods of Mars and requested that St. John design a Sunday page around this excerpt, using "word balloons" and coloring the original so they could get an idea of what it would look like in color. When St. John sent Ed a negative of his sample art, Ed's son Hulbert, had some positive prints made and Ed made the following suggestion to St. John: "If  King Features decide to use this strip,  I am going to suggest that they run the descriptive matter below the pictures as is done with the Tarzan strips, as I like the better than the balloons. I know that you agree with me in this."

"There is just one thing in connection with the drawings and that is John Carter's face. He should be more masculine and look a little more like a fighting man, that is, his features should be more rugged and his mouth less effeminate; at least that is my conception of him. "This was the same complaint Ed lodged against St. John's dust jacket painting for The Warlord of Mars.

Hearst never bought off on the John Carter feature, even though his editors were enthusiastic about it. Instead, a few months later he had Alex Raymond create Flash Gordon, a Sunday feature that Ed always felt plagiarized John Carter.  After all, why pay Ed for the use of his character when he could own the character outright?

The last of St. John's Burroughs illustrations were executed for Ray Palmer, editor Ziff-Davis' Amazing Stories and Fantastic Adventures. Ed in the early 1940s, wrote a series of four novelettes each about John Carter, David Innes and Carson of Venus. Palmer felt that no other artist but St. John should illustrate these stories. Needless to say, the stories and St. John's covers and interior black and white illustrations were fondly embraced by the magazines' readers. We don't own any of these paintings, however, one cover painting each is owned by Stephen Korshak (Amazing Stories, October 1941). I love St. John's pulp art, it is so wonderfully "over the top," almost outrageous! Pure pulp -- unrestrained!

Many fine illustrations have illustrated my grandfather's stories, but he always felt that the pairing of his words with St. John's pictures was a perfect marriage -- and even though I love my father's illustrations, I have to agree with Ed's opinion. Some readers might prefer the more modern art of Frazetta, Krenkel, Boris, Adams, or Whelan, but even they cannot dispute the fact that St. John's pictures perfectly fit the stories. Just as my grandfather stories are proving to be timeless, St. John's illustrations are, themselves, timeless.

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BILL HILLMAN
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