Waldo Emerson Smith-Jones is everything civilization has made soft and sheltered, washed ashore on an island where violence and blood rule. The absurd pretension of his name tells you everything: he's a Boston blueblood raised in cotton wool, and now he must survive among cave men who hunt with spears and beasts that stalked the earth before memory. Burroughs understands transformation intimately - survival demands becoming someone else entirely. Waldo becomes Thandar, earns the respect of Nadara - the cave girl, the princess - through whatever desperate courage he can summon, and finds himself fighting for love and life against savages and monsters. The lost world genre has never been purer: an island sealed off from history where ancient horrors still breathe and a civilized man must measure himself against primordial forces. Yes, it carries its era's racial assumptions about savagery and civilization. But the fantasy remains potent - the dream of shedding your useless refinement to discover what you're made of when the jungle closes in.
