Tarzan and the Forbidden City (1938) by Edgar Rice Burroughs is a late-series gem that reinvigorates the Ape-Man’s adventures with a return to lost civilization tropes, published as the 18th installment by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. during the author’s self-publishing era. This novel sends Tarzan on a perilous quest to the mythical city of Ashair, where two rival expeditions—one seeking a legendary healer, the other pursuing the fabled Father of Diamonds—unleash ancient horrors. The 1938 first edition, bound in vibrant bluen cloth, features the dynamic jacket art by John Coleman Burroughs (the author’s son).
What makes this volume particularly collectible is its transitional status: it was the last Tarzan novel edited before Burroughs’ wartime hiatus, and the first to show John Coleman’s artistic evolution from his earlier stiff illustrations to more fluid, cinematic compositions. The original edition contains unsoftened depictions of the Ashairites’ brutal rituals that would be modified in postwar reprints.
