Tarzan And The Forbidden City

Tarzan and the Forbidden City (1965)
By Edgar Rice Burroughs | Four Square Books
ISBN: none (this is pulp, not a spreadsheet)
Condition: Good (rugged, not housebroken)
Offered by: Crappy Old Books

Welcome to that glorious era when “holiday in Africa” meant mysterious lost cities, giant gems, and absolutely no health and safety forms.

In Tarzan and the Forbidden City, Edgar Rice Burroughs sends the Lord of the Jungle into yet another situation where any normal person would say, “No thanks, I’ve read the risk assessment.” Naturally, Tarzan goes anyway.

The setup

Somewhere in the heart of Africa lies:

• A legendary city, rumoured to be guarded by suspiciously hostile inhabitants

• A gigantic gemstone known as the Father of Diamonds, because apparently subtlety was cancelled that day

• A missing explorer, rival adventurers, and a frankly unhelpful amount of danger

Into this strolls Tarzan, casually barefoot and probably mildly bored, ready to:

• Look cooler than everyone else

• Upset local power structures

• Climb things that were not designed to be climbed

It’s classic Burroughs:
Lost civilisation?
Exotic geography?
Wild beasts + weapons + melodrama?

Expect inside:

Without spoiling every twist, you’ll find:

• A race to reach the forbidden city, involving planes, caravans, and poor life choices

• A Tarzan lookalike causing more confusion than a badly written email chain

• Two rival hidden cities glaring at each other across a hostile landscape, like neighbours fighting over a particularly aggressive hedge

• Jealous rulers, secret tunnels, dungeons, rescues, and the occasional “surely that animal is not to scale?” moment

It’s pulp adventure at its finest:

• Absolutely sincere

• Mildly ridiculous

• Unashamedly entertaining

This particular copy

• Condition: Good – very much in “has survived a few safaris in the real world” shape:

  • Spine: sound, with the usual signs of actually having been opened

  • Cover: likely shows some edgewear, maybe a crease or two – the paperback equivalent of “has seen the jungle”

  • Pages: all present, readable, and pleasantly tanned, like they’ve been lying in the literary sun since the 60s

No catastrophic tears, no missing chapters, no evidence it’s been used as an emergency fly-swatter. Just an honest, working Four Square paperback ready for another round.

The vibe

Reading Tarzan and the Forbidden City feels like:

• Sitting down “just for a minute” and looking up an hour later having crossed deserts, climbed cliffs and started mentally casting the film adaptation

• Dropping into a world where:

  • Geography is flexible

  • Anthropology is… optimistic

  • And the solution to most problems involves either a knife, a vine, or a well-timed jungle yell

• Remembering what adventure fiction was like before everyone insisted on being realistic, plausible, or historically sensitive

Is it pulpy? Absolutely. Is it subtle? Not remotely. Is it fun? Very.

Why you might actually want this

• You love vintage adventure paperbacks with lurid titles and unashamedly dramatic plots

• You have a soft spot for Tarzan stories, especially the ones where he wanders into yet another improbable lost city and everyone just accepts this as his hobby

• You enjoy reading things that feel like they were written to be devoured on trains, in deckchairs, or under the bedcovers with a torch

• You’re collecting 1960s mass-market Burroughs editions, because someone has to keep these gloriously daft treasures circulating

Condition vs. Content

• Physically: Good – sturdy enough for bags, commutes, and being left face down while you make tea

• Atmospherically: 100% pulp jungle epic with extra lost-city seasoning

Ideal for:

• A weekend escape

• An evening’s time travel to when adventure wore a loincloth and carried a knife

• Or as a display piece to make your shelves look 37% more exciting

Offered by Crappy Old Books, where the cities are forbidden, the paperbacks are Good, and Tarzan is still swinging cheerfully through the most implausible corners of Africa.

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