''Tarzan Alive: A Definitive Biography of Lord Greystoke'' is a fictional biography by American author

Philip José Farmer Philip José Farmer (January 26, 1918 – February 25, 2009) was an American author known for his science fiction and fantasy novels and short stories. Obituary. Farmer is best known for his sequences of novels, especially the ''World of Tiers ...

, that alleges the life of Edgar Rice Burroughs' 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 ...

, 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 Panther may refer to: Large cats *Pantherinae, the cat subfamily that contains the genera ''Panthera'' and ''Neofelis'' **'' Panthera'', the cat genus that contains tigers, lions, jaguars and leopards. *** Jaguar (''Panthera onca''), found in So ...

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 hominids who are probably now extinct" and "not

great ape 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 ...

s". 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 Michael Diamond Resnick (; March 5, 1942 – January 9, 2020) was an American science fiction writer and editor. He won five Hugo awards and a Nebula award, and was the guest of honor at Chicon 7. He was the executive editor of the defunct ma ...

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 Ne ...

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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

See also

External links