Jungle Tales of Tarzan

Before Tarzan became the lord of the jungle, he was still learning its language. These twelve stories pull you into the African wilderness not through the ape-man's eyes, but through the creatures who shared his world: the panther who hunts him, the elephants who remember his kindness, the great apes who raised him. Burroughs rewrites his own mythology, turning Tarzan into a figure of legend as perceived by those who live and die in the green darkness. The stakes here are smaller and stranger than in the novels. A wounded leopard plots revenge. A hunter learns too late what dwells in the deep forest. In one tale, a mother cub is stolen by the hairless ape who walks like thunder. In another, the great bull elephants speak of the strange creature who killed their greatest king. Here Tarzan is not protagonist but specter, rumor, terror in the treetops. The jungle has never felt more alive or more dangerous. These stories work as perfect companion pieces to Tarzan of the Apes, filling the silence between chapters twelve and thirteen, but they also stand alone as something purer: adventure fiction with teeth, where the wild fights back and nothing is safe.