Brother Men: The Correspondence of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Herbert T. Weston

by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Matt Cohen (Editor), Herbert T. Weston

Brother Men is the first published collection of private letters of Edgar Rice Burroughs, the phenomenally successful author of adventure, fantasy, and science fiction tales, including the Tarzan series. The correspondence presented here is Burroughs’s decades-long exchange with Herbert T. Weston, the maternal great-grandfather of this volume’s editor, Matt Cohen. The trove of correspondence Cohen discovered unexpectedly during a visit home includes hundreds of items—letters, photographs, telegrams, postcards, and illustrations—spanning from 1903 to 1945. Since Weston kept carbon copies of his own letters, the material documents a lifelong friendship that had begun in the 1890s, when the two men met in military school. In these letters, Burroughs and Weston discuss their experiences of family, work, war, disease and health, sports, and new technology over a period spanning two world wars, the Great Depression, and widespread political change. Their exchanges provide a window into the personal writings of the legendary creator of Tarzan and reveal Burroughs’s ideas about race, nation, and what it meant to be a man in early-twentieth-century America. The Burroughs-Weston letters trace a fascinating personal and business relationship that evolved as the two men and their wives embarked on joint capital ventures, traveled frequently, and navigated the difficult waters of child-rearing, divorce, and aging. Brother Men includes never-before-published images, annotations, and a critical introduction in which Cohen explores the significance of the sustained, emotional male friendship evident in the letters. Rich with insights related to visual culture and media technologies, consumerism, the history of the family, the history of authorship and readership, and the development of the West, these letters make it clear that Tarzan was only one small part of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s broad engagement with modern culture.

328 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Edgar Rice Burroughs was an American author, best known for his creation of the jungle hero Tarzan and the heroic John Carter, although he produced works in many genres.

Reviews

[David Critchfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t know why this book has been on my “to read” shelf since 2006 when I bought it from the author at ECOF 2006 (Edgar Rice Burroughs Chain of Friendship). Matt Cohen inscribed mine “To David, at ECOF 2006…a Brother Man indeed! Enjoy the letters.” I remember some negative comments from fans about the book’s 50-page introduction, but I found it to be just fine, although the real treasure is the correspondence itself.

But let me back up a bit. Matt Cohen is the great grandson of Herbert T. Weston, a life-long close friend of Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs. Weston and Burroughs wrote to each other over the years, and those letters were kept by Cohen’s grandparents. These have been assembled in this wonderful collection which spans the years from 1903 to 1945.

Near the book’s end is Burroughs’ surreal account of the attack on Pearl Harbor. He was playing tennis with his son and others and witnessed the attack, while continuing the tennis game.
I wonder if any besides Burroughs fans have read this book. The letters at times are highly entertaining and humorous, and as Cohen says in the introduction, it “is a rich resource that offers mystery enough for a wide range of inquiries—about visual culture and media technologies, consumerism, the history of the family, the history of authorship and readership, the development of the West, and the development of Nebraska and California…”

I would have preferred having the footnotes at the bottom of the page rather than gathered together at the back. They are interesting and useful but this arrangement caused me to use two bookmarks and flip to the back 105 times.