Edgar Rice Burroughs must have known about C. T. Stoneham’s The Lion’s Way. But like all the imitators, ERB ignored them, having the policy of imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. (I have often wondered if it was because he wanted to avoid going to court and having to face the Kipling accusation?) By 1931, there were a number of imitators and Stoneham was just one of a pack.
Charles Thurley Stoneham (1895-1965) made a career of writing about Africa. Which makes sense because he lived in Kenya and South Africa for much of his life. (Something ERB never did.) He wrote a least a dozen novels of Africa along with other adventure and Western novels. He was also a prolific short story writer for Blue Book, The American Weekly, Boys’ Own Paper, The Cornhill Magazine, Everybody’s Magazine, 20-Story Magazine and a number of English newspapers like The Daily Mail and The London Evening News. In a perfect world, men like C. T. Stoneham (including Arthur O. Friel and Gordon MacCreagh, actual men who had been to the jungle) would be the world famous jungle writers, not ERB. That’s the power of Burroughs’ imagination and the character that is Tarzan. Only Kipling and Haggard have been able to hold their own.
Stoneham wrote two novels about Kaspa: The Lion’s Way (1931) and Kaspa, the Lion Man (1933). Kaspa is raised by a lioness, then captured by men, who discover he is the heir to a fortune. Kaspa tries to live the life of a man, falls for a gal, but returns to the jungle. Does that plot sound familiar? It certainly was. Edgar Rice Burroughs used it in his first Tarzan novels. The film version, Greystoke, The Legend of Tarzan (1984) feels like an adaptation of Stoneham’s book (minus the lions).
But Kaspa had his own movie. The first novel was filmed as The King of the Jungle (1932) starring Larry “Buster” Crabbe. Philip Wylie, the SF writer was one of the script writers. The New York Times (February 25, 1933) review said of it:
Endowed with a refreshing sense of humor lacking in other films of the type, “King of the Jungle,” which is now at the Paramount, is an unusually good picture, one that will appeal to cinema patrons of all ages.
Buster Crabbe would play Tarzan the same year in Tarzan the Fearless, a 12-part serial. Fearless was released in August; Kaspa was February. While Kaspa delighted critics, Fearless was a sneaky, poorly done rip-off by Sol Lesser. Lesser got the film rights from a bankrupt company, causing MGM (who thought they had an exclusive) grief. The contract also stated that Tarzan had to be played by James “Big Jim” Pierce, Burroughs’ son-in-law. Lesser got around that stipulation by offering Pierce $5000 and a screen test. (It amazes me that ERB had any time to write more Tarzan novels with all the Hollywood hiccups he had to manage his copyrights.)
The October 1948 issue of Famous Fantastic Mysteries, a Pulp that reprinted stories from the decades before, featured The Lion’s Way, with new illustrations by Virgil Finlay. The sequel, Kaspa the Lion Man (1933) did not appear at FFM. By 1948, Crabbe and his serial were long gone but Edgar Rice Burroughs type stories were still popular in the Pulps.
Virgil Finlay has taken the “darkest Africa” literally here. He often used plenty of contrast but these images are some of the darkest he did.