Edgar Rice Burroughs was born on September 1, 1875 in Chicago, Illinois. He attended the Michigan Military Academy from 1892-1895 and then served in the United States Cavalry from 1896-1897. He was married twice: first in 1900 to Emma Centennia Hulbert, whom he divorced in 1934, and then to Florence Dearholt in 1934, whom he divorced in 1942. Before he became a writer Burroughs tried numerous careers, including cowboy, stationery store owner, factory clerk, miner, and railroad policeman. He was thirty-five and working at another of his failed jobs, this time trying to sell pencil sharpeners, when he first seriously considered writing. As he would reminisce in 1929, "If people were paid for writing rot such as I read [in magazines] I could write stories just as rotten. I knew absolutely that I could write stories just as entertaining and probably a lot more so than any I chanced to read...