# Tarzan and Sherlock Holmes **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [November 29, 2001, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tarzan-and-sherlock-holmes/95970 "2001-11-29T18:39:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2001, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tarzan-and-sherlock-holmes/95970/1 "2001-11-29T18:39:42Z")
Regarding today’s column: [http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mtarzan.html](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mtarzan.html) Philip Jose Farmer has Tarzan related to Sherlock Holmes not only in his book **Tarzan Alive!** (which you cite), but also in the Holmes/Tarzan pastiche **The Adventure of the Peerless Peer**. Interesting stuff. But Farmer wasn’t always successful at imitating the style of the writer he was copying, and Adventure comes off as third-rate Holmes. (Much better is his short story “The Jungle Rot Kid on the Nod”, in which he attempts a Tarzan story if it was not not by Edgar Rice Burroughs, but William Burroughs.) ---
**Author:** ![RiverRunner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/977dab/32.png) [@RiverRunner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RiverRunner)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2001, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tarzan-and-sherlock-holmes/95970/2 "2001-11-29T20:20:09Z")
Farmer also wrote a book about Doc Savage – the title of which escapes me now – that has Doc related to Holmes, Tarzan, and a bunch of others. It was great; he had come up with a whole family tree. It seems to me the Scarlet Pimpernel was in there, along with Lamont Cranston and the Green Hornet, for all I know. RR ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2001, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tarzan-and-sherlock-holmes/95970/3 "2001-11-29T21:04:58Z")
> [@](#): > > Farmer also wrote a book about Doc Savage – the title of which escapes me now – that has Doc related to Holmes, Tarzan, and a bunch of others. It was great; he had come up with a whole family tree. It seems to me the Scarlet Pimpernel was in there, along with Lamont Cranston and the Green Hornet, for all I know. You’re probably thinking of the infamous **A Feast Unknown** , a pornographic novel featuring “Doc Caliban” and an equally thinly disguised Tarzan. There were two sequels to this – **The Lord of the Trees** starring the ersatz Tarzan, and **The Mad Goblin** starring Doc Caliban (they were the flipsides of an Ace Double). Both were G-rated. Farmer claimed it was the first time a dirty book spun off two clean sequels. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Rieux](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Dr.Rieux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Rieux)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2001, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tarzan-and-sherlock-holmes/95970/4 "2001-11-30T01:17:10Z")
He’s probably thinking of **Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life** (1974). It has a long chapter about how several dozen fictional characters were all related to each other. And a family tree. Didja know that Archie Goodwin and Travis Mcgee were cousins? ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2001, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tarzan-and-sherlock-holmes/95970/5 "2001-11-30T01:47:38Z")
And _The Other Log of Phileas Fogg_ and _A Barnstormer in Oz_… It’s his shtick. ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2001, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tarzan-and-sherlock-holmes/95970/6 "2001-11-30T04:02:37Z")
While we’re discussing the Wold-Newton(sp) thing that Farmer came up with, in a similar vein, I just found an oddity called “Sherlock Holmes’ War of the Worlds” by Manley Wade Wellman. I’ve only read a chapter or two (I got distracted by a couple of other books), but…um…why is whatshername…the landlady? Sherlock Holmes’s love interest? Back to Tarzan/Wold-Newton: the [premise](http://www.thepulp.net/PulpFAQ/farmer.html) is > [@](#): > > that in the 1700s a radioactive meteor landed near Wold Newton, England. The radiation affected the occupants of two nearby coaches. > > The descendants of these people became the real-life heroes and villains that are the basis for almost all the major and minor literary heroes of the last couple of centuries, including such diverse characters as Fu Manchu, James Bond, Travis McGee, most of the pulp heroes, the Scarlet Pimpernel and others. Of course the stories we have read about them are exaggerated fiction, so that most people think them wholly fictitious. (I know that everyone who’s particpated in the thread so far knows this, but for the people who don’t…) In other books, Tarzan, Dorothy (Gale, from Kansas) and Philias Fogg were all linked up. If you like this sort of thing, Alan Moore’s “League of Extrordinary Gentlemen” has a similar theme. Fenris ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2001, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tarzan-and-sherlock-holmes/95970/7 "2001-11-30T11:11:42Z")
Fenris writes: \> I’ve only read a chapter or two (I got distracted by a \> couple of other books), but…um…why is \> whatshername…the landlady? Sherlock Holmes’s love \> interest? Because Wellman thought it would be interesting to have Holmes and Mrs. Hudson be lovers. (She’s young and pretty in this book.) I own about three hundred Sherlock Holmes pastiches, and I’ve seen a huge variety of different takes on the background of Sherlock Holmes. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2001, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tarzan-and-sherlock-holmes/95970/8 "2001-11-30T12:06:33Z")
> [@](#): > > He’s probably thinking of Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life (1974). > It has a long chapter about how several dozen fictional characters were all related to each other. > And a family tree. Damn! You’re right. Forgot that one. BTW, the name of the Tarzan clone, I recall, is Lord Grandrith. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2001, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tarzan-and-sherlock-holmes/95970/9 "2001-12-01T00:44:31Z")
Tarzan met a Belgian guy and learned French before he spoke English. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2001, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tarzan-and-sherlock-holmes/95970/10 "2001-12-01T00:47:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by John W. Kennedy \* > \*\*_The Other Log of Phileas Fogg_ \*\* Was reccomended to me to explain Count Gregory in _The Secret Diaries Of Jules Verne_, but no cigar. Er, banana. Does anyone know? ---
**Author:** ![Fiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e274bd/32.png) [@Fiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiver)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2001, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tarzan-and-sherlock-holmes/95970/11 "2001-12-05T20:47:55Z")
**carnivorousplant** : > [@](#): > > Tarzan met a Belgian guy and learned French before he spoke English. Yes, it must have been terribly confusing for the young Tarzan. As recounted in the first book, Tarzan taught himself to read English, and later the Belgian military officer, who spoke French and English, decided to teach Tarzan French because it was the Belgian’s native (and therefore most fluent) tongue. But their common reference point, their Rosetta Stone if you will, was written English. Tarzan later regained England and his family’s wealth, and went on to become well-educated, sophisticated and articulate: a far cry from the monosyllabic trog in the movies. But it was remarked on by other characters through the series of books how strange it was that an English lord should speak with a French accent. I second **Fenris** ’s recommendation of Alan Moore’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comic book. It’s sort of a late-Victorian Justice League, which has the mysterious M of Her Majesty’s Secret Service assembling the following heroes from fiction: Henry Jekyll/Edward Hyde Allan Quatermain Mina Murray (an unusually pale young divorcee, who for some reason always wears a scarf around her neck) Griffin, the Invisible Man Captain Nemo, offering the services of his advanced submersible The characters ring true, and there are wonderful Easter eggs hidden throughout the series. It’s like Mystery Science Theater 3000, in that no one could possibly catch all the literary references. It’s full of Easter eggs, like when the characters race through the East End of London and encounter a character who, if you’re paying attention, you’ll realize is the super-annuated Artful Dodger from Dickens. I wonder if Moore has read Farmer’s books. I’m sure he has. I wonder if he liked them.