''Tarzan and the Golden Lion'' is an adventure novel by American writer
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 ...
, the ninth in his
series of twenty-four books about the title character
Tarzan
Tarzan (John Clayton II, Viscount Greystoke) is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungle by the Mangani great apes; he later experiences civilization, only to reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adv ...
. It was first published as a seven part serial in ''Argosy All-Story Weekly'' beginning in December 1922; and then as a complete novel by A.C. McClurg & Co. on March 24,
1923.
Plot summary
The story picks up with the Clayton family: Tarzan,
Jane Porter
Jane Porter (3 December 1775 – 24 May 1850) was an English historical novelist, dramatist and literary figure. Her bestselling novels, ''Thaddeus of Warsaw'' (1803) and ''The Scottish Chiefs'' (1810) are seen as among the earliest historical ...
and their son
Korak, returning from their adventures in the previous novel (#8). Along the way, they find an orphaned
lion
The lion (''Panthera leo'') is a large Felidae, cat of the genus ''Panthera'' native to Africa and India. It has a muscular, broad-chested body; short, rounded head; round ears; and a hairy tuft at the end of its tail. It is sexually dimorphi ...
cub, which Tarzan takes home and trains.
Flora Hawkes, a previous housemaid of the Claytons, has overheard of Tarzan's discovery of the treasure chamber in the lost city of
Opar (from ''
The Return of Tarzan
''The Return of Tarzan'' is a novel by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, the second in his series of twenty-four books about the title character Tarzan. It was first published in the pulp magazine '' New Story Magazine'' in the issues for Ju ...
'' and ''
Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar
''Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar'' is a novel by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, the fifth in his series of twenty-four books about the title character Tarzan. It first appeared in the November and December issues of ''All-Story Cavalier W ...
'') and has managed to copy his map to it. She concocts a plan to lead an expedition to collect the gold. As a contingency to discourage any local denizens from questioning them, she seeks out and finds a Tarzan look-alike named Esteban Miranda to accompany them.
Two years pass since the Clayton family adopted their lion cub, making the year around 1935 and Tarzan is about 47 years old. His Greystoke estate has become so financially depleted due to his support of the Allies war efforts, and he concludes it was time to return to Opar for another withdrawal.
Tarzan encounters Hawkes' party, where he is drugged and ends up in the hands of the Oparians. Queen La, who has come into disfavor with the high priest, feels she has nothing to lose by escaping with Tarzan through the only unguarded route — a path to the legendary valley of diamonds, from which no one has ever returned. There, Tarzan finds a race of humans who are little better than animals in intelligence, being enslaved by a race of intelligent gorillas. With the help of his golden lion
Jad-bal-ja
Jad-bal-ja, the Golden Lion is a fictional character in Edgar Rice Burroughs's Tarzan novels, and in adaptations of the saga to other media, particularly comics.
Character
Jad-bal-ja serves as a companion to Tarzan, to whom he is attached as a dog ...
, Tarzan uses the natives to restore
La to power. Before leaving, he accepts a bag of diamonds as a reward.
Meanwhile, Esteban Miranda convinces Tarzan's Waziri party to take the gold from Hawkes' party while most of them are out hunting. He then buries the gold so he can retain it later. The real Tarzan eventually confronts the imposter, who still manages to pilfer Tarzan's bag of diamonds. Miranda is then chased by Jad-bal-ja, but he escapes into a river, before finding himself later captured and permanently imprisoned by a local tribe. Tarzan loses the diamonds, but he's still able to attain the gold and return with it.
Film adaptations
The novel was made into a
motion picture
A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...
in 1927.
Comic adaptations
''Tarzan and the Golden Lion'' has been adapted into
comic
a Media (communication), medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically the form of a sequence of Panel (comics), panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, Glo ...
form by
Gold Key Comics
Gold Key Comics was originally an imprint of American company Western Publishing, created for comic books distributed to newsstands. Also known as Whitman Comics, Gold Key operated this way from 1962 to 1984. Currently, Gold Key Comics is owned b ...
in ''Tarzan'' nos. 172-173, dated April–May 1969, with a script by
Gaylord DuBois
Gaylord McIlvaine Du Bois (sometimes written DuBois) (August 24, 1899 – October 20, 1993) was an American writer of comic book stories and comic strips, as well as Big Little Books and juvenile adventure novels. Du Bois wrote ''Tarzan'' for De ...
and art by
Russ Manning
Russell George Manning (January 5, 1929"United States Social Security Death Index," index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/VMMT-NZN : accessed 28 Aug 2014), Russell Manning, Dec 1981; citing U.S. Social Security Administration ...
.
The book was the basis for an episode of
Filmation
Filmation Associates was an American production company that produced animation and live-action programming for television from 1963 until 1989. Located in Reseda, California, the animation studio was founded in 1962. Filmation's founders and pr ...
's animated ''
Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle
''Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle'' is an American animated series created by the Filmation studio for Saturday mornings on CBS, starting in 1976. This was the first animated series about the jungle hero. There are 36 episodes produced over four seas ...
'' series. Here, the intelligent gorillas are depicted as a race of gorilla men called the "Bolmangani", where they imprison a race of monkey people and many other animals, but they fight along Tarzan.
References
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External links
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*
*
Text of the novel at Project Gutenberg Australia*
ttp://www.erblist.com/erblist/tzglionsum.html Edgar Rice Burroughs Summary Project page for ''Tarzan and the Golden Lion''Formatted epub version of the book on edgar-rice-burroughs-ebooks.blogspot.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tarzan and the Golden Lion
1923 fantasy novels
1923 American novels
A. C. McClurg books
American fantasy novels adapted into films
Tarzan novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Books about lions