The 1948 Edgar Rice Burroughs Incorporated Reprints
In 1948 Edgar Rice Burroughs Incorporated published a total of twenty-two reprints from the master's
canon; ten in the Tarzan series, 9 Mars, and 3 Venus. They were all the same size, with gray cloth.
The color of the lettering varied from book to book. Cover and spine titles were the same as on the
first editions (except for The Chessmen of Mars). No matter what lettering style was used for the
titles, at the bottom of the spine the author's name was given in sans-serif typeface as the publisher.
Except for the books that were originally published with wrap-around illustrations—wherein the
artist's work encompassed the front cover, spine and back cover—each employed a uniform dust
jacket back cover and back flap design, which adapted the earlier Burroughs Inc. design created for
ERB Inc. and G&D reprints starting as early as 1932 with Jungle Girl. However, this back cover
design was also an adaptation of an earlier design done by A. W. Sperry for the Metropolitan books
first edition of Tarzan and the Lost Empire in September 1929. The wraparounds used the uniform
back flap design, but otherwise were identical to the first edition. All the ‘48 reprints used the first
edition front-cover art, except for Tarzan and the Lion Man, which used the G&D front-cover instead
of the Janus-head design of the first edition.
With the exception of some Young People’s editions, two paperbacks, and a one-volume release of
two novelettes, this would be the corporation’s last major publishing initiative and the last by any
publisher of over sixty of ERB’s seventy-five titles until the 1960s. While the Tarzan name would live
on in the movies, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ name would all but disappear from the public conscious-
ness during the almost fourteen-year publishing interregnum that would last until 1962.
In 1948 Edgar Rice Burroughs Incorporated published a total of twenty-two reprints from the master's
canon; ten in the Tarzan series, 9 Mars, and 3 Venus. They were all the same size, with gray cloth.
The color of the lettering varied from book to book. Cover and spine titles were the same as on the
first editions (except for The Chessmen of Mars). No matter what lettering style was used for the
titles, at the bottom of the spine the author's name was given in sans-serif typeface as the publisher.
Except for the books that were originally published with wrap-around illustrations—wherein the
artist's work encompassed the front cover, spine and back cover—each employed a uniform dust
jacket back cover and back flap design, which adapted the earlier Burroughs Inc. design created for
ERB Inc. and G&D reprints starting as early as 1932 with Jungle Girl. However, this back cover
design was also an adaptation of an earlier design done by A. W. Sperry for the Metropolitan books
first edition of Tarzan and the Lost Empire in September 1929. The wraparounds used the uniform
back flap design, but otherwise were identical to the first edition. All the ‘48 reprints used the first
edition front-cover art, except for Tarzan and the Lion Man, which used the G&D front-cover instead
of the Janus-head design of the first edition.
With the exception of some Young People’s editions, two paperbacks, and a one-volume release of
two novelettes, this would be the corporation’s last major publishing initiative and the last by any
publisher of over sixty of ERB’s seventy-five titles until the 1960s. While the Tarzan name would live
on in the movies, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ name would all but disappear from the public conscious-
ness during the almost fourteen-year publishing interregnum that would last until 1962.
 |  |  |  |  |  |  |
 | |  | |  | |  |