From the day he was born in Chicago on September 1, 1875 until he submitted half a novel to All-Story Magazine in 1911, Edgar Rice Burroughs failed in nearly every enterprise he tried.

He attended six different public and private schools before he finally graduated in 1895 from Michigan Military Academy, an institution Burroughs himself described as a 'polite reform school'.

Having failed the entrance examination to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, he enlisted as a private in the Seventh U.S. Cavalry, hoping that he might still obtain a commission as an officer if he distinguished himself in a difficult assignment. Thus, he asked to be sent to the worst post in America - a request the authorities speedily granted.

The post was Fort Grant in the Arizona desert, and his mission, as he put it, was to "chase the Apaches". "I chased a good many Apaches", he said, "but fortunately for me I never caught up with any of them".

Private Burroughs soon had his fill of Fort Grant, and after appealing to his father for help, his discharge was arranged through political friends. In 1900, he married Emma Centennia Hulbert, who dutifully followed him back and forth across America during the next eleven years.

He became a cowboy in Idaho, then a shopkeeper, a railroad policeman, a gold miner, and even an 'expert accountant', although he knew nothing of the profession. Throughout this period, he somehow raised money for a number of his own businesses, all of which sank without a trace.

Life was dismal for the newly married couple. Burroughs became depressed, his wife discouraged. Perhaps to escape from the grim reality of his own life, or perhaps to amuse Emma, he would often sketch darkly humorous cartoons or write fantastic fairy tales of other worlds.