Tarzan the Untamed

Tarzan the Untamed is an adventure novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, first published in book form in 1920 after its two parts were serialized in 1919 and 1920. It is the seventh Tarzan novel and places Tarzan's African estate within the East African fighting of the First World War.

After finding his home devastated and believing Jane has been killed by German soldiers, Tarzan begins a relentless pursuit of those responsible. Grief strips away his ties to European society, and vengeance becomes his governing purpose as he moves behind enemy lines.

The campaign widens through encounters with Bertha Kircher, whose loyalties remain uncertain, and the British aviator Harold Percy Smith-Oldwick. Their journeys lead beyond the battlefield to the isolated city of Xuja, where war adventure gives way to lost-world danger.

This is one of the series' darkest portraits of its hero: resourceful and loyal, but driven by an assumption he has not yet proved. Burroughs combines espionage, captivity, and pursuit with a sustained test of judgment under grief, carrying the unresolved search directly into the next novel.

"Hauptmann Fritz Schneider trudged wearily through the somber aisles of the dark forest. Sweat rolled down his bullet head and stood upon his heavy jowls and bull neck. His lieutenant marched beside him while Underlieutenant von Goss brought up the rear, following with a handful of askaris the tired and all but exhausted porters whom the black soldiers, following the example of their white officer, encouraged with the sharp points of bayonets and the metal-shod butts of rifles."