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THE BURROUGHS BULLETIN
See
George McWhorter's Index for a complete listing of Bulletin contents from
issue No. 1 to Present
The Bibliophiles
got their start in 1947 when Vern Coriell, a traveling circus performer,
founded The Burroughs Bulletin. Created with the blessing of Edgar Rice
Burroughs himself, the Bulletin came to life as a small mimeographed fanzine
-- the contents of which were belted out on an old typewriter perched on
the hood of Vern’s car when he was on the road -- that was sent free to
curious Burroughs enthusiasts. One of the curious was Vincent Starrett,
the influential Chicago Tribune book critic, and his review brought in
a flood of requests from around the world. By 1960 the readership had grown
to such an extent that Vern and other fans, at the World Science Fiction
Convention in Pittsburgh that year, decided to create an organized literary
society, the Burroughs Bibliophiles; the Bulletin became the group’s official
organ. The mission of the Bibliophiles, then as now, is to promote an understanding
and appreciation of the great American author Edgar Rice Burroughs.
Both the Bibliophiles and the Bulletin
foundered in 1987 with Vern's death, but were revived by George McWhorter
in 1990. As curator of the Edgar Rice Burroughs Memorial Collection at
the University of Louisville, McWhorter was ideally suited to helm the
reborn Bulletin. What started out as a simple mimeographed fanzine has
become a glossy, professionally produced quarterly journal. Thanks to McWhorter’s
efforts and now under the guidance of current editor, Henry Franke III,
Edgar Rice Burroughs has received a level of exposure and critical recognition
not seen for decades. The Bibliophiles membership continues to grow, indicating
that the organization’s namesake will continue to be one of the world’s
most popular authors well into the twenty-first century.
| IN
THE WORDS OF EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS... |
| " When I first started in to write,
I was sort of ashamed of it as an occupation for a big, strong, healthy
man, so I kept it a secret. No one helped me. No one knew what I was doing
-- not even my closest friends. Now I've come to the conclusion that writing
is a 'pretty nice' way to make a living. " |
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