Burroughs’ Story
While the man became a prolific and beloved writer, he was once a young drifter and US Army reject, a snake oil salesman, and a failed businessman. He began writing as a desperate measure to pay his bills. And in the end, Burroughs sold more than 100 million books, so I think his bills were aptly paid. But for some reason, despite his worldwide success, he never appreciated his own work.
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“I don’t think my work is literature,” he once said. “I’m in the same class with the serial artist, the tap dancer, and the clown.” This is coming from a man who wrote 25 Tarzan novels that were translated into 30 languages, and wrote bestselling science fiction stories, like “A Princess of Mars,” which later turned into the 2012 movie ‘John Carter.’