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StoryPDFTarzan of the ApesEdgar Rice Burroughs

Tarzan of the Apes

Edgar Rice Burroughs

Complete text
NovelEnglish

After a young English couple is stranded on an African coast, their child grows up among apes rather than in human society. Tarzan's developing abilities and encounters with other people bring competing forms of belonging, inheritance, and self-recognition into an adventure of survival.

28 sections85,818 wordsAbout 6 h 30 min
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About Tarzan of the Apes

The story combines rapid physical action with questions about what its hero learns from different communities. Documents, language, and reading become instruments of identity alongside strength and forest knowledge. Its depictions of race and civilization carry pronounced hierarchies that deserve attention as part of the narrative's worldview, rather than being mistaken for neutral descriptions.

Reading focus

Read a jungle adventure in which survival skills, language, and inherited identity compete to define a hero's place among others.

This reading edition contains 85,818 words in 28 original sections. Read the text online with adjustable type and three colour themes, or keep a printable PDF.

Author: Edgar Rice Burroughs. Language: English. Reading edition: 28 October 2026.

Opening excerpt

I had this story from one who had no business to tell it to me, or to any other. I may credit the seductive influence of an old vintage upon the narrator for the beginning of it, and my own skeptical incredulity during the days that followed for the balance of the strange tale.

Read the complete opening section

Contents

All sections
  1. CHAPTER I. Out to Sea17 min
  2. CHAPTER II. The Savage Home15 min
  3. CHAPTER III. Life and Death11 min
  4. CHAPTER IV. The Apes12 min
  5. CHAPTER V. The White Ape12 min
  6. CHAPTER VI. Jungle Battles11 min
  7. CHAPTER VII. The Light of Knowledge18 min
  8. CHAPTER VIII. The Tree-top Hunter9 min
  9. CHAPTER IX. Man and Man17 min
  10. CHAPTER X. The Fear-Phantom9 min
  11. CHAPTER XI. “King of the Apes”16 min
  12. CHAPTER XII. Man’s Reason13 min
  13. CHAPTER XIII. His Own Kind22 min
  14. CHAPTER XIV. At the Mercy of the Jungle15 min
  15. CHAPTER XV. The Forest God9 min
  16. CHAPTER XVI. “Most Remarkable”14 min
  17. CHAPTER XVII. Burials16 min
  18. CHAPTER XVIII. The Jungle Toll17 min
  19. CHAPTER XIX. The Call of the Primitive17 min
  20. CHAPTER XX. Heredity19 min
  21. CHAPTER XXI. The Village of Torture10 min
  22. CHAPTER XXII. The Search Party16 min
  23. CHAPTER XXIII. Brother Men.13 min
  24. CHAPTER XXIV. Lost Treasure12 min
  25. CHAPTER XXV. The Outpost of the World16 min
  26. CHAPTER XXVI. The Height of Civilization16 min
  27. CHAPTER XXVII. The Giant Again19 min
  28. CHAPTER XXVIII. Conclusion14 min

Reading & download help

Is this the complete Tarzan of the Apes?

This edition contains the complete English literary text, with 28 sections and 85,818 words. This reading edition preserves the checked English text and its section order. No study notes have been added.

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A4 is designed for 210 × 297 mm paper; US Letter for 8.5 × 11 inch paper. Both contain the same complete text, selectable text and section bookmarks.

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