Friends of the Limberlost
  • Home
  • Resources
    • Maps
    • Teachers
    • Mobile app and iBook
    • Programs >
      • Birds >
        • Beneficial Birds
        • Chimney Swifts
        • Eagles
        • Extreme Birds
        • Indiana's Raptors
        • Owls of Limberlost
        • Peregrine Falcons
        • Vultures
      • Insects >
        • Dragonflies
        • Moths
      • Rent-a-Naturalist
    • News
  • Blog
  • Videos
  • Bird's Eye View
  • Contact Us

Wherein we learn why 1912 was a good year for an ape-man, dinosaurs, and Gene Stratton-Porter

4/12/2015

 
By Curt Burnette   
     
If asked to think of the year 1912 and what might have been significant about it, some folks 
might recall it was the year the Titanic sank. A few parents of Brownies and other Girl Scouts 
might remember it was the year the Girl Scouts were founded. It was also a good year for 
literature, especially popular literature, for this was the year when (fictionally) an orphaned 
boy of British nobility was raised by apes and became one of the greatest and most popular 
adventurers of all time, dinosaurs were discovered (fictionally) on a lost plateau in South 
America, and Gene Stratton-Porter dominated (factually) the book world.

 Everyone has heard of Tarzan of the Apes, and most of us have seen at least one of the many 
movies. But did you know when he made his first appearance? In the October 1912 issue of an 
American pulp magazine, Tarzan made his debut. The author Edgar Rice Burrows also began his John Carter of Mars series earlier that year in the same magazine. Tarzan became enormously popular around the world and still has a strong presence today, over 100 years later.

 Another fictional story known around the world appeared in 1912 when Sir Arthur Conan 
Doyle (creator of Sherlock Holmes) published his novel The Lost World. The familiar tale of 
explorers in South America, who come across a mysterious, hidden, and almost inaccessible 
mountain plateau where dinosaurs have survived over the eons, continues to thrill us today. It 
has influenced such books as Jurassic Park and The Lost World by the modern writer Michael 
Crichton, and the movies of the same names. But it was Sir Arthur who started it all. His book 
also contained a version of ape-like (although prehistoric) men. In a later adventure, Tarzan 
also traveled to a lost world of dinosaurs in Tarzan at the Earth’s Core, but inside the earth 
instead of on a remote plateau.

 By the end of 1912, a number of books had been published about the sinking of the 
Titanic, which had happened earlier in the year in April. Like Tarzan and the dinosaurs of Conan Doyle’s lost world, the sinking of this “unsinkable” ship continues to reverberate today with books and movies still engaging us with the famous tragedy.

 In 1912 Gene Stratton-Porter made it to the top of the book world. Her novel, The 
Harvester, was published in August of 1911, and had made its way up to number five on the 
best-seller list by the end of that year. Sales continued strongly throughout the next year. By 
the end of 1912, Gene’s tale of David Langston, the harvester of medicinal plants, had become 
the number one fiction book sold in America. The story of the Harvester and his Dream Girl was Gene’s first Top Ten book, with five more to follow: Laddie, Michael O’Halloran, A Daughter of the Land, Her Father’s Daughter, and Keeper of the Bees.

Comments are closed.

    Author

    The volunteers and staff of Limberlost

    Archives

    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    November 2020
    October 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    September 2014
    July 2014

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.