An English lord and his wife are marooned on the African coast and die there; their infant son is raised by apes and teaches himself to read from his dead father's picture books, alone, having never heard a human voice. Burroughs had failed at ranching, gold dredging and selling pencil sharpeners when he sat down at thirty-five to write this for a pulp magazine. It made him one of the richest authors in America and gave the century a character it has never been able to put down.