The first and best of the Tarzan novels, of which Edgar Rice Burroughs eventually wrote several dozen, Tarzan of the Apes remains one of the signature stories of American popular literature, as readable as it is famous. Tarzan himself is the best known character in the whole of fiction.
There is no question that Tarzan of the Apes is one of the most entertaining and exemplary books of the last century. It is not merely a story from a bygone era; it is a tale as old as time, and for all time, too.