The Lad and The Lion

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

First paperback edition of The Lad and the Lion, originally serialized in All Story Weekly in 1917 and expanded for book publication in 1938 (Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.)

Cover Illustration: A. Bartran

Genres: Adventure, Fantasy, Fiction, Pulp, Action, Science Fiction Fantasy, Science Fiction

189 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1917

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

[Benjamin Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

When a king of a small European country is murdered by conspirators, the grandson and heir is spirited away lest the same thing happen to him. Through a series of misadventures, the boy is stranded alone in Africa and is befriended by a lion cub. They grow up together and eventually come into contact with human civilization in the form of Arab tribesman and then later on, a French camp.

But that’s not all. Those are only the even numbered chapters. The odd-numbered chapters deal with events back in the kingdom where the murdered king's brother Prince Otto, one of the conspirators, succeeds him. Otto and his spoiled son Prince Ferdinand are not well liked and their story is pretty compelling.

This stand-alone novel was written in 1914 and was originally published as a three-part serial in “All-Story Weekly” in 1917. But this paperback version has been expanded and updated in 1938 or so which explains why much of the political background exposition deals more with WW2-era issues and technology than WW1.

I really enjoyed this one, perhaps because it wasn’t just about the boy and the lion and Tarzan-like adventures. The political intrigue of Otto and Ferdinand was something unexpected for me and I liked the way the two story lines alternated but did not interact until the very last paragraph of the book.

A definite read for ERB fans.

[William Stafford · Rating 4 out of 5]

A strange little book with two storylines that occupy alternating chapters. Young Prince Michael escapes would-be assassins but somehow along the way to safety, loses his memory and wakes up on board a boat, floating adrift with only a lion for company... This is over 90 years before The Life of Pi, mind you. Back in his home kingdom, various factions jockey for power. Revolution is in the air and treachery is at every turn. Meanwhile, Michael and his lion chum arrive in North Africa and get up to all sorts of adventures with the locals, including love interests for each of them!

It's not the best-written of the Burroughs books I've read but it's still enjoyable with some very vivid depictions of violence. The plot rattles along at breakneck speed. As the end of the book gets nearer you wonder how the author is going to reunite the two strands of his novel - he just about pulls it off, providing a satisfactory resolution. Part-Tarzan adventure (except Michael is king of lions rather than apes) and partly akin to Burroughs's own The Mad King, this book is well worth seeking out.

[James Shrimpton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simple and pulpy but profound. Story at a fair clip, visceral stakes and so much style.

Burroughs was truly a master of the craft.

[Mike J · Rating 2 out of 5]

My main problem with the book was too much jumping back and forth between the wild boy and his lion and what was going on in his home country. I would have preferred a simple adventure story about the lad growing up in the wild with a lion. I could have done without all the politics of trying to get rid of the ruler and have a people's constitution back in the old country.

[Charles · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not one of my favorites, but certainly readable.

[Skjam! · Rating 3 out of 5]

A certain kingdom in Europe is experiencing unrest. The people are chafing under the absolute monarchy, wanting to switch to a constitutional republic. The current king is actually pretty good as monarchs go, but firmly believes that those who have been born and trained to rule should do so, rather than trust to the will of the people and random elections. A group of revolutionaries, soon to be known as “the Terrorists”, have taken advantage of the unrest to make themselves the face of the republican movement. They make a deal with the king’s brother Otto; if the king and his heir Prince Michael suddenly are not alive and Otto attains the throne, he will sign a constitution giving the people more of a voice in government.

The king isn’t a complete fool, and realizes things are about to pop. He has one of his retainers smuggle Prince Michael out of the country. The king is assassinated, and Michael is lost in a shipwreck, presumed dead. Otto takes the throne, and promptly reneges on his promises, having the people he knows to be in the revolutionary party shot instead. King Otto is not as good a ruler as his brother, and the people suffer. Also, his son, Prince Ferdinand, is a royal brat.

Michael is not dead, of course. But he did suffer total amnesia as a result of the shipwreck, and drifted insensible for a while before being taken aboard a derelict ship by a deaf-mute man with a captive lion cub. For several years, the older man uses the lad as a slave as he grows to young manhood and the lion matures.

Eventually the lad and the lion turn against their cruel master, who dies to the lion’s jaws. After some more drifting, the pair abandon ship and wind up in the dry savannah/desert part of Africa. Their adventure is about to truly begin!

This combination of adventure story and political thriller was written by Edgar Rice Burroughs in 1914, first published in magazines in 1917, was turned into a movie that same year (the first of ERB’s novels to do so!) and took until 1938 before being published in book form. According to Wikipedia, it’s believed that Burroughs did another editorial pass for the book version, as certain aspects changed from a 1910s political landscape to a 1930s one.

The story is structured in alternating chapters, with one plot following the lad and the lion as they adapt to life in the wild and then encounter “civilized” humans, with the lad realizing that he is human and falling in love, while the other plot follows the political turmoil in the kingdom he’s left behind.

Good: Exciting action scenes and the romance is not half bad. The ending subverts the usual expectations a reader would have had back in the 1910s.

Less good: Hoo boy, the ableism. The deaf-mute man also suffers from epilepsy, and is described as a “moron” which at the time was a medical term. The narration feels free to call him “a defective” and ascribes his cruelty to his mental disabilities. His horrible death is considered justified.

Arabs are described as being more “primitive” than other races. Not that being “civilized” makes Europeans come off any better in this particular story; the only truly good people are the lad who is basically a bipedal beast for much of the story, and Naklha, the one Arab maiden who surpasses notions of race and class.

Odd: Some characters never get names, most notably “the cobbler’s beautiful daughter” who keeps that description even when she gets married and takes an active role in the plot. Her husband is named, but she doesn’t even get a “Mrs. Wesl.”

Political: The revolutionaries talk about getting a “liberal constitution” a lot, but calling themselves “Terrorists” is a dead giveaway. Most of the ones who lead the movement are most interested in gaining power for themselves.

Content note: Assassination, regular murder, suicide, deaths in combat. (The lad is fine with killing human enemies, but for reasons unknown to himself draws the line at eating them.) Child abuse, animal abuse. Ableism. Racism, ethnic prejudice and classism. Nakhla is repeatedly threatened with slavery and implied sexual assault. Two of the characters are heavily implied to be having extramarital sex.

Overall: This is one of Mr. Burroughs’ more obscure works, and that’s not surprising. The innovative plot structure is the best thing here, and there’s a lot of incidental bits of the story that have aged badly. Recommended for completists, and adventure fans who can handle the outdated attitudes.

[Leothefox · Rating 2 out of 5]

Now this is a puzzler. It's a little bit “Return of Tarzan”, it's a little bit “The Outlaw of Torn”, and it comes up a bit short. While our amnesiac muscle-bound hero hunts with a lion in the North Africa, the nameless European country he is the rightful king of cycles through political turmoil.

So, unnamed European country has restless natives, Prince Michael's father was killed by the badies and they soon get his grandfather too. You see, these subjects do not appreciate the monarchy and demand a constitution. We get lots of cutaways to plotting revolutionaries in cafes lead by a Lenin type. Young Michael is sent away to avoid being killed, but his ship sinks and he winds up getting a blow on the head. Since Michael was the rightful ruler, the country naturally goes badly in his absence.

The way the 13 year old crown prince becomes a wild man hunting with a lion is among Burroughs stranger contrivances. His lifeboat drifts near a derelict ship, which he winds up aboard, with a mute epileptic old man and a young caged lion. The boy lives on this ship for years, befriending the lion and basically being a slave to the old man (Burroughs frequently refers to the old man as “the defective”). Eventually the lion frees the lad from the abuse, they run aground, and our title characters wind up in Africa.

All the parts about Prince Micheal, aka Aziz, aka the Lionman, and his pal are pretty straight Burroughs wilderness adventure stuff. You get other wild beasts, some good Arabs with a comely daughter for love-interest, bad Arabs too for balance, jealous contenders for her hand, some French military types, and the usual romantic misunderstandings. The lad learns Arabic and French in short order, and of course he can communicate with the lion through roars and growls.

The problem is really the other parts of the book, which tracks the rise of haughty Prince Ferdinand to the throne and how his demanding nature only fans the flames of revolution. Burroughs often romanticizes monarchy in the early books, which was no problem in fantasy settings, but to apply that love to 20th century Europe is more than a little problematic. This is from 1917, so ERB places the blame for everything on commies, pretty much thumbing his nose at Democracy as well. Characters are tricked into playing patsy for various plots of the villains, and nearly everyone dies badly and off-screen. I guess Europe still looked like a charming old-world place and a fairy tale in itself, someplace where kings belonged. It becomes pretty obvious that the lion is here as the classic symbol for monarchy.

The political side of this book reflects the tragic love-affair that America was to have with Fascism in the coming decades.

I guess a bigger part of the problem is that the prologue launches two stories that never come back together. The amnesiac prince meets other Europeans in Africa, but they don't appear to relate back to his country or birthright. It wouldn't have been a big trick to either get the royals to the desert or to get the lad back to his country, Burroughs managed those coincidences deftly and often, but I'm guessing that wasn't important here.

Anyhow, kind of a weak link here. Not as good as “The Mucker” or even “The Monster Men”.

[Ryan Harvey · Rating 2 out of 5]

An important piece of background on this novel by ERB that few people know about (and there's not much online). The only book version available is an extensive 1938 re-write of the short novel first published in All-Story weekly in three installments in mid-1917. Burroughs originally wrote the story in 1914, right after completing The Beasts of Tarzan, which accounts for some similarities between the two. The magazine publication was delayed to coincide with a movie version, the very first film adaptation of an ERB story. (The film is now lost.)

In 1937, Burroughs added approximated 21,000 words to the 40,000 word original to try to sell it to magazines as a new story, although nobody took him up on it. Instead, he published it through his own company in 1938. This is the version people are reading.

Those additional 21,000 words account for the split nature of the story: all the odd-numbered chapters are new. The original magazine version is just the jungle adventure with Azîz and the lion—the story starts with the shipwreck. All the material about the politics in the fictional nation is newer material, and this is why none of it connects to anything in the even-numbered chapters.

If you read just read the even-numbered chapters, you'll have a complete, and pretty decent, ERB adventure story. Add in the odd-numbered chapters, which are tonally cynical political commentary from a much older Edgar Rice Burroughs, and you get a lumpy, weirdly paced book that's bound to disappoint.

As an ERB scholar, the book is fascinating to me, but I can't recommend it to anyone else.

[Tim Deforest · Rating 4 out of 5]

The young crown prince of an unnamed Central European country flees that country after his father is killed in a coup. A set of unusual circumstances leave him with amnesia in a sparesly settled section of North Africa. Those unusual circumstances also brings him a full-grown lion as a friend and companion.

The adventures that follow involve the young man (who eventually goes by the name Aziz) falling in love with the daughter of a Arab sheikh after rescuing her from kidnappers. There are, of course, further adventures involving a rival suiter and a band of outlaws.


While all this is going on, each alternate chapter of the book returns to Aziz's home country, where revolutionairies plot and counter-plot against the current king and each other. Murders and assassinations ensue.

For the most part, these are two different stories--though both are well-told tales. There is a thematic link, though--whether Aziz is better off in the relative wilderness of North Africa or whether he could return to a "civilized" country where a throne awaits him is central to the very last sentence of the novel.

[Nolan Christensen · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was... not a good book. I liked approximately 6 pages of it in total.

I'm a fan of E.R.B., and saw this being advertised as having being written after the Tarzan series. "Cool," I thought, "A story written after he had time to hone all his skills, where he's a master of his craft, where all the tricks and tools at his disposal come into play?! I'm in!"

Then I was met with the classic amnesiac main character, racism, sexism, classism, colonialism, etc. And let's be real, when the story does it correctly, fine. As far as I could tell, this one most certainly did not do it correctly. More than half of it revolves around the politics, revolution, and counter-revolutions of the titular boy's home kingdom- and I get it, continually showing that in stark contrast to the boy's existence, cool- but it ended up a slog for me.

I do like that the boy didn't return home, thought that was bold/lampshading his previous works, but all in all I would have preferred to have read a different book.

Not a fan of this one, would not recommend, won't keep on the bookshelf.

[J. Weichsel · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Lad and the Lion isn't the worst Edgar Rice Burroughs novel I've read, but it's certainly not the best. I'd call it better than average. It gets high marks however for its weird plot and inappropriate politics.

The weird plot deals with a young prince who is hit on the head and develops amnesia during a shipwreck. He is picked up by a deaf mute who lives of a derelict ship with a lion. The youth grows up without language, not knowing that there is any world beyond the drifting ship, the evil deaf mute, and the lion.

As far as the political themes go, like many of ERB's books this one has a strong royalist sentiment, but the difference is that The Lad and the Lion takes place in what for Burroughs was modern Europe, and has strong antidemocratic themes as well. The democratic revolutionaries in the novel's imaginary kingdom are portrayed as dilettantes, wannabe dictators, incompetents, and over-idealistic idiots. The rightful king, is of course noble, and well, kingly.

[Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Lad and the Lion by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Revolutionaries plot and assassinate the king of a remote European Kingdom, forcing his son to flee the country. One danger is exchanged for another as the ship he is on sinks, separating the prince from his guard. Awakening on the shores of Africa after a grievous head injury and no memories of his past, the boy is all alone save for the company of a young lion.

A very Burroughs story with mighty thews, unlikely happenstance and exciting adventures. The chapters alternate between the Prince and the lion and political subterfuge of his home country.
I enjoyed this book very much.

[Steven Prange · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent, as with all ERB books.

[Rob Roy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A young prince is a castaway, and develops a friendship with a lion. Farfetched yes, but a darn good yarn. You will love the ending by the way.

[Jeff J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pulp novel by the prolific Burroughs. Published a few years after Tarzan of the Apes, it borrows the plot device of a child raised in the wild. The ending was satisfying, albeit a little abrupt.

[LadyCalico · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm so glad I found this one. Having read all the ERB Tarzon books I can find, I really miss a good Tarzon story, so this is as close as I could find to one without it actually being one. It Reminded me of The Son of Tarzan, which was not one of Burrough's better books but neither is this, but it was certainly fun and a pleasure.

[Norman Cook · Rating 4 out of 5]

Serialized in 1917, but not published in book form until 1938, The Lad and the Lion combines European politics of the World War I era with the adventure of a boy and his lion, ala Tarzan and the apes. The book moves alternately between the two scenarios. The lad, not knowing his royal roots due to a staple of Burroughs' writing, the amnesic blow to the head, falls in love with an Arab princess and must rescue her from an evil suitor. Meanwhile, the lad's family and countrymen face treachery and revolution at every turn. Predictably, the plot threads are neatly resolved, although not necessarily the way the reader expects. I suppose this was not a very successful book, since there was no sequel, but I would have liked to have seen more adventures of the lad and his lion, no more preposterous than a boy and his apes.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the better Burroughs books of the ones I've read. Not only is the writing better than in his earlier work, but the racism that he so often inserted into his stories is considerably muted (for Burroughs anyway). He seems to have gotten past at least some of the foolishness of his youth. Although women are still damsels in distress, by the time he wrote this story he had progressed enough to include several women who were intelligent and not just props. It is odd, though, that after two decades of writing about jungle animals, he never seemed to have heard of a pride of lions.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ya gotta love Edgar Rice Burroughs, particularly the "two-off" novel sets like this one and Hawk of the Wilderness. And of course the John Carter of Mars series. It's pulp fiction, but it's REALLY GOOD pulp fiction.

[Hazel M Bear · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love how Burroghs writes men. They are handsome, srtong, yet always kind and beyond dedicated to their lady-loves. Comparing this with Tarzan, his male protagonists are the epitome of gentlemanly behavior even in the midst of uncivilized lives. Very fun read, especially for being so short.

[Bruce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Typical Burroughs. Fun, escape literature.

[Little Timmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good adventure story by this pulp era master. Recommended

[Ronald · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little confusing with all the court intrigue but not the strictly usual ending. a typical Burroughs tale overall(plus half the book takes place in the desert)