The Return of Tarzan Illustrated

Rootless after the sacrifice that ended Tarzan of the Apes, Tarzan leaves America and travels to Europe in The Return of Tarzan Illustrated. Edgar Rice Burroughs begins the sequel aboard ship, where his hero becomes involved with Countess Olga de Coude, Count Raoul de Coude, and two schemers seeking to exploit them. By frustrating Nikolas Rokoff and Alexis Paulvitch, Tarzan earns enemies whose plots follow him beyond the voyage. Parisian society tests his self-command in a different arena from the jungle, and Rokoff manipulates appearances to turn private suspicion into public danger. Count Raoul's eventual recognition of Tarzan's integrity opens another path: work as a special agent for the French ministry of war. That assignment carries him into Algeria, where political intrigue, pursuit, and encounters with local communities extend the novel's movement between civilization and wilderness. Burroughs builds the adventure from contrasts—aristocratic etiquette and physical danger, assumed identity and instinctive action, loyalty and revenge. The sequel broadens Tarzan's world without resolving his divided sense of belonging too quickly. Its momentum comes from a hero capable in several environments yet never fully at home in any of them.