Tarzan (Philip Jose Farmer) Books in Order

Farmer's Tarzan shelf is really about fascination as much as continuation. He did not treat Tarzan as a character he merely liked. He treated him as a problem worth reopening, a legend worth testing, and sometimes almost as a historical figure who had been badly reported.

That approach is clearest in Tarzan Alive, which pretends to be a serious biography of a real man. Farmer keeps the joke straight-faced for so long that the joke turns into method. He fills gaps, argues with earlier accounts, and links Tarzan into a much larger family web of fictional and historical characters.

Later, with Tarzan and the Dark Heart of Time, he finally got to write an authorized Tarzan novel. That matters because the tone changes. Instead of standing outside the myth and poking at it, he gets to move inside it and simply tell a jungle adventure at speed.

Around those books sit other Tarzan-adjacent pieces, including experiments like Lord Tyger and crossovers like The Adventure of the Peerless Peer. So this page is not just about one series in the usual sense. It is about watching Farmer circle one of his favorite pulp creations from every angle he could find.