''Tarzan Alive: A Definitive Biography of Lord Greystoke'' is a fictional biography by American author Philip José Farmer, that alleges the life of

Edgar Rice Burroughs Edgar Rice Burroughs (September 1, 1875 – March 19, 1950) was an American author, best known for his prolific output in the adventure, science fiction, and fantasy genres. Best-known for creating the characters Tarzan and John Carter, he ...

' character Tarzan, is a story of a real person. The book was first published in hardcover by Doubleday in 1972, with a paperback edition following from Popular Library in 1973 and a trade paperback edition from Bison Books in 2006. The first British edition was published by Panther in 1974. The book is written on the premise that Tarzan was an actual person with original author Burroughs having written highly fictionalized and romanticized memoirs of Tarzan, which were based on Tarzan's own life stories and adventures. Farmer is then telling the "real story". Farmer examines the psychological make up of John Clayton (Tarzan's real name in the novels) and his peers, based on close readings of the various Burroughs books, accepting some of Burroughs' concepts and rejecting others in an attempt at greater verisimilitude. Among his conceits is that, since the apes described by Burroughs had a spoken language that Tarzan learned, these animals must have been " pithecanthropoids": "a group of rare

hominid The Hominidae (), whose members are known as the great apes or hominids (), are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: '' Pongo'' (the Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutan); ''Gorilla'' (the east ...

s who are probably now extinct" and "not great apes". The most recent edition of ''Tarzan Alive'' includes a foreword by

Win Scott Eckert Win Scott Eckert is an author and editor, best known for his work on the literary-crossover Wold Newton Universe, created by author Philip José Farmer, but much expanded-upon subsequently by Eckert and others. He holds a B.A. in Anthropology a ...

and an introduction by Mike Resnick along with "An Exclusive Interview with Lord Greystoke" and "Extracts from the Memoirs of "Lord Greystoke". The text of ''Tarzan Alive'' links the characters from the Tarzan mythos to dozens of other fictional literary characters as members of Farmer's "

Wold Newton family The Wold Newton family is a literary concept derived from a form of crossover fiction developed by the American science fiction writer Philip José Farmer. Origins In real life a meteorite, called the Wold Cottage meteorite, fell near Wold New ...

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1972 American novels 1972 fantasy novels Wold Newton family Novels by Philip José Farmer Works based on Tarzan Crossover novels {{1970s-fantasy-novel-stub

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