Tag Archives: Edgar Rice Burroughs

Edgar Rice Burroughs and the Fate Worse Than Death

In June 1970, an article by R. D. Mullen appeared in the fanzine Riverside Quarterly, detailing all occurrances of a heroine escaping the lustful clutches of a villain in the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs written between 1911 and 1915. From just those five years (21 novels), Mullen finds and lists seventy-four such instances.

The stories of Edgar Rice Burroughs contain many lessons of great value for the attentive reader, but none more valuable than the warning that an unprotected girl is always in danger of being raped by an Arab, Negro, great ape, Green Martian, or monster of some other kind, or by a wicked white man, or sometimes even by a good white man. Unwilling to rest content with a mere warning, Burroughs also provides many useful pointers on how an endangered young lady may defend her honour — or, if her own resources fail, on the kinds of rescue that may be expected from an ever-watchful Providence.

— R. D. Mullen, Edgar Rice Burroughs and the Fate Worse Than Death