This post is brought to you by the up-coming Strange Adventures, a collection by G. W. Thomas. This companion volume to Strange Detectives takes the action out into the mountains and deserts of the world. One story “Ungerheurhorn” has an American gun salesman in the Alps on holiday. When ape monsters appear to savage the residents and tourists, the bullets begin to fly.
This is one of those weird posts that I just seem to have to do. The Pulps had plenty of stories about ape creatures (descended from Poe’s “Murders in the Rue Morgue” and Dr. Moreau) but the tales here are not those. For those, go here.These are stories that offer tribes of monkey men, ape creatures, etc. living in the wilds of the world. The human characters encounter them and must deal with them. Some like Jules Verne’s offering are meant as commentaries on Evolution. Others seem quite frankly to me just racist. Whatever the driver, these Science Fiction writers gave us treetop villages and men with tails like monkeys. Some are quite old while others are surprisingly new.
Now it should be mentioned that novels about prehistoric times go back to 1840 and continue to today. Here is a great timeline. What makes the stories here different is that they do not propose to tell of a time past but encounters between currently living humans with ape-men. It is the idea of living relics that fuels this type of adventure fiction. Many of them use lost worlds for locales. For more on that, go here.
The Classics
The Crystal Sceptre (1901) by Philip Verrill Mighels is a novel inspired by H. R. Haggard (“Alan’s Wife” most likely since Heu Heu will appear in 1924. In that novel, Allan Quatermain sees a statue of a giant ape man but doesn’t encounter such a beast.) with a man lost in the jungle who joins a tribe of “Links” as he calls them after “The Missing Link” of evolutionary discussion. He describes them:
Neither men nor apes, yet clearly creatures which were nearly the one and on the verge of being the other, these inhabitants of the place had evidently been observing my form, in a spirit of cautious curiosity, for a number now came swinging down from trees adjacent to the one I had occupied, and the ones upon the ground set up a series of singular cries.
… The creatures about me were a score or so in number, standing erect, apparently much excited, yet threatening no attack. Their movements were restless; their roundish, near-together eyes were constantly moving, like those of a monkey; they circled about me, uttering guttural monosyllables, with many inflections. Every one of them gripped in a powerful hand the haft of a rude sort of club, fashioned out of a rock, lashed firmly to the end of a stout piece of wood.
The mutual inspection between us lasted several minutes. I could detect but little difference between any two of the beings. They were nearly as tall as I, averaging about five feet six inches; they were thin, wiry, entirely naked, long-armed, flat-nosed, big-jawed and covered, on their legs and arms, with a thin and somewhat straggling growth of hair. Their skin was a reddish light-brown in colour; their feet were large, but much like hands, having the great toe set back like a thumb; their legs were slender and poorly shaped, but exceedingly muscular; their shoulders and backs were round.
One of the first to drop from a tree was a giant among them, a creature more than six feet tall, active as a panther, commanding in aspect, and possessing arms that reached fully to his knees. He carried a remarkable club which was made of a great chunk of rock-crystal, secured at the end of a polished bone, large and straight. This crystal still had its gleaming points and facets preserved; it therefore inspired me with a dread of the jagged hole it could smash in the skull of the largest animal.
Amazed as I was by what I saw, my astonishment was instantly increased when I observed the only female creature I had yet beheld. She issued from a copse and took her place beside the giant, who stood leaning on his club, eyeing myself nervously. She was a pure albino. Her hair, which was long and coarse, was as white as foam, her eyes were as pink as a rabbit’s; her complexion was florid red on white. With a rudimentary modesty, she stood partially concealed behind the giant, although she was “clothed” in a patch of skin from a pure white gull, in addition to a sort of rude necklace of claws.
We see, what will not be the first time, two groups of Links, one red and one black. Guess which ones are the bad guys? Despite this and many literary weaknesses, this novel is a fun read. For more on it, go here.
Le village aerien (The Village in the Treetops) (1901) by Jules Verne appeared in French around the same time as Mighels book but wasn’t translated into English until much later in 1964. Verne poked this particular bear once before in Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864) with the Ape Giganis, which doesn’t actually exist but is only imagined. This was Verne stating what he thought of Charles Darwin and his ideas. He returned to this argument a second time with The Village in the Treetops but in more detail.
Verne’s treetop villagers appear thus:
Anyhow, that these creatures were anthropoids of a higher species than the orangs of Borneo, the chimpanzees of Guinea, the gorillas of Gaboon, which are nearest to humanity–that could not be doubted. They certainly knew how to make fire and had several other domestic conveniences. Among these was the hearth at the first camp and the torch which their guide had carried through the lonely darkness…What it was also necessary to note was that these creatures, of unknown species, were built like human beings for standing and walking.
Verne finishes with his two observers deciding the villagers are human enough, being able to smile and cry. His stance on Evolution has softened. Verne was a lover of Science but also a devote Catholic, creating this conundrum for him. The book is more interested in this struggle than providing great fight or escape scenes though. Fortunately, there are some to follow.
The Lost World (The Strand Magazine, April-November 1912) by Arthur Conan Doyle is another classic that set the rules for everything that would follow in the Pulps, like cavemen and dinosaurs hanging out together. Professor Challenger and his crew escape a dinosaur only to be captured by ape-men:
“It was in the early mornin’. Our learned friends were just stirrin’. Hadn’t even begun to argue yet. Suddenly it rained apes. They came down as thick as apples out of a tree. They had been assemblin’ in the dark, I suppose, until that great tree over our heads was heavy with them. I shot one of them through the belly, but before we knew where we were they had us spread-eagled on our backs. I call them apes, but they carried sticks and stones in their hands and jabbered talk to each other, and ended up by tyin’ our hands with creepers, so they are ahead of any beast that I have seen in my wanderin’s. Ape-men—that’s what they are—Missin’ Links, and I wish they had stayed missin’. They carried off their wounded comrade—he was bleedin’ like a pig—and then they sat around us, and if ever I saw frozen murder it was in their faces. They were big fellows, as big as a man and a deal stronger. Curious glassy gray eyes they have, under red tufts, and they just sat and gloated and gloated. Challenger is no chicken, but even he was cowed. He managed to struggle to his feet, and yelled out at them to have done with it and get it over. I think he had gone a bit off his head at the suddenness of it, for he raged and cursed at them like a lunatic. If they had been a row of his favorite Pressmen he could not have slanged them worse.”
Challenger, it turns out, resembles these ape-men:
“I thought it was the end of us, but instead of that it started them on a new line. They all jabbered and chattered together. Then one of them stood out beside Challenger. You’ll smile, young fellah, but ‘pon my word they might have been kinsmen. I couldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. This old ape-man—he was their chief—was a sort of red Challenger, with every one of our friend’s beauty points, only just a trifle more so. He had the short body, the big shoulders, the round chest, no neck, a great ruddy frill of a beard, the tufted eyebrows, the ‘What do you want, damn you!’ look about the eyes, and the whole catalogue. When the ape-man stood by Challenger and put his paw on his shoulder, the thing was complete. Summerlee was a bit hysterical, and he laughed till he cried. The ape-men laughed too—or at least they put up the devil of a cacklin’—and they set to work to drag us off through the forest. They wouldn’t touch the guns and things—thought them dangerous, I expect—but they carried away all our loose food. Summerlee and I got some rough handlin’ on the way—there’s my skin and my clothes to prove it—for they took us a bee-line through the brambles, and their own hides are like leather. But Challenger was all right. Four of them carried him shoulder high, and he went like a Roman emperor. What’s that?”
There were several version of The Lost World plus TV shows but none of them really feature the ape-men much, preferring the dinosaurs, whether animated, slurposaur or CGI.
The Pulps
The respectable classics are done and now the Pulps take over. And the master of the Jungle is Edgar Rice Burroughs who will produce several ape peoples. The first is the Monkey-Men in Pellucidar:
At the Earth’s Core (All-Story Weekly, April 4-25, 1914) by Edgar Rice Burroughs feature two types of ape-men. The Monkey-men appear only the once and actually have tails:
…Chattering and gibbering through the lower branches of the trees came a company of manlike creatures evidently urging on the dog pack. They were to all appearances strikingly similar in aspect to the Negro of Africa. Their skins were very black, and their features much like those of the more pronounced Negroid type except that the head receded more rapidly above the eyes, leaving little or no forehead. Their arms were rather longer and their legs shorter in proportion to the torso than in man, and later I noticed that their great toes protruded at right angles from their feet—because of their arboreal habits, I presume. Behind them trailed long, slender tails which they used in climbing quite as much as they did either their hands or feet…
We must have traveled several miles through the dark and dismal wood when we came suddenly upon a dense village built high among the branches of the trees. As we approached it my escort broke into wild shouting which was immediately answered from within, and a moment later a swarm of creatures of the same strange race as those who had captured me poured out to meet us. Again I was the center of a wildly chattering horde. I was pulled this way and that. Pinched, pounded, and thumped until I was black and blue, yet I do not think that their treatment was dictated by either cruelty or malice—I was a curiosity, a freak, a new plaything, and their childish minds required the added evidence of all their senses to back up the testimony of their eyes.
These monkey people place the two surface dwellers in an arena to fight Roman style against beasts. The humans are saved by another race of ape-men, the Sagoths:
As I looked, the ape-things broke in all directions toward the surrounding hills, and then I distinguished the real cause of their perturbation. Behind them, streaming through the pass which leads into the valley, came a swarm of hairy men—gorilla-like creatures armed with spears and hatchets, and bearing long, oval shields. Like demons they set upon the ape-things, and before them the hyaenodon, which had now regained its senses and its feet, fled howling with fright. Past us swept the pursued and the pursuers, nor did the hairy ones accord us more than a passing glance until the arena had been emptied of its former occupants. Then they returned to us, and one who seemed to have authority among them directed that we be brought with them.
When we had passed out of the amphitheater onto the great plain we saw a caravan of men and women—human beings like ourselves—and for the first time hope and relief filled my heart, until I could have cried out in the exuberance of my happiness. It is true that they were a half-naked, wild-appearing aggregation; but they at least were fashioned along the same lines as ourselves—there was nothing grotesque or horrible about them as about the other creatures in this strange, weird world.
The Monkey people never show up again in the seven Pellucidar books but the Sagoths are more important. They serve a race of pterodactyl monsters called the Mahars. They are more advanced, using weapons and strategy beyond the monkey folk.
We got a movie version of At the Earth’s Core in 1975 but ape fans will be disappointed. The Monkey-men make no appearance and Sagoths look stupid, not apish at all. Such is the world of movie budgets.
The Land That Time Forgot (Blue Book, August-December 1918) was also by Edgar Rice Burroughs. It was reprinted in Amazing Stories, February-April 1927. ERB creates an island called Caprona that is an active Evolution machine. You are born a protoplasm then change into a fish then an animal and then through humanoid types from monkey-man to a fully developed human, then unfortunately onto become an evil Weiroo, a winged human. Because of this changing scale Burroughs has ape-men of all stages throughout the three linked tales.
Bowen Tyler comes across a dead one:
I could not say, for it resembled an ape no more than it did a man. Its large toes protruded laterally as do those of the semiarboreal peoples of Borneo, the Philippines and other remote regions where low types still persist. The countenance might have been that of a cross between Pithecanthropus, the Java ape-man, and a daughter of the Piltdown race of prehistoric Sussex. A wooden cudgel lay beside the corpse.
Live ones carry off his girl and the usual Burroughsian stuff happens. The movie version of The Land That Time Forgot showed up when before Pellucidar in 1974. Some apemen do appear in this one. There was also a sequel, The People That Time Forgot (1977) which is a mixed bag.
“The King of the Monkey Men” (Amazing Stories Quarterly, Spring 1928) by A. Hyatt Verrill has explorer Henry Meredith looking for the source of a beautiful waupona bird in the land of the Monkey men. He and his men do this by using a ladder to gain access to a hidden valley surrounded by cliffs. Meredith’s men are killed by the Monkey-men but he is spared because they become fascinated with his rifle. When the chief is killed, Meredith takes control and explores the valley. Later he will discover his long lost-daughter and other silliness.
The Monkey-men are quite brutish and strong:
…Crouching within a few feet of me, his repulsive, ugly, black face peering into mine, was one of the monstrous ape-like beings…There was no doubt that they were human. But they were the most repulsively hideous men that the wildest fancy could conceive. Black as coal, with bowed legs and enormous ape-like feet, stooping shoulders and long gorilla arms, they appeared like a troop of Calibans. Their faces were broad, flat and brutal, with high cheek bones, enormously developed jaws, small turned u-up noses, and little restless, roving eyes like those of an elephant. Their chins were covered with thick matted beards, and a mop of tangled hair overhung their foreheads and extended down their necks and shoulders in a sort of mane. despite their hideousness, there was a certain expression of intelligence in their faces and eyes, 
and their high foreheads bespoke a large brain capacity very different from what one would expect in such low primitive types of man. Every one, too, was a giant, with great corded, rippling muscles under his black skin. Mostly they were nude, but a few wore strips of bark about their loins, and one or two had spindles of wood or bone through their ears and noses. And nearly every one grasped a short blowgun scarcely three feet in length…
In the Land of the Monkey Men (1923) by A. Hyatt Verrill is a Boys’ adventure based partly on the Pulp story. A group of boys discover a lost city in the jungle. They unkindly call the local “M0nkey men” despite not having tails or anything like that. Verrill is quite racist in this book, which sadly was quite common in “Boys Books”. It’s not really a sequel or even related but the titles are very similar.
“The Ape-Men of Xlotli” by David R. Sparks (Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930) has Freddy Kirby, adventurer in Mexico where he escapes pursuit and finds an underground war between men and ape-men. Fortunately he finds some guns and ammo too, to defeat the physically superior apes. He has to rescue his girl from being sacrificed to a giant snake (natch). Sparks barely described the Ape-men of Xlotli since by now we all know what an ape-man looks like:
On one of the two trails appeared suddenly in the dusk an ape-creature. Kirby saw at once that the thing was small–a female undoubtedly–and that it had spied them and was moving toward them with all speed.
Modern Classics
The Mountains at the Bottom of the World (aka Devil Country) (1972) by Ian Cameron follows a group of scientist into the Andes over a border dispute. They get captured by a race of red-colored Missing Links who are quite nasty. Cameron swipes a joke from Arthur Conan Doyle, making his Mason resemble the ape-creatures just as Professor Challenger did.
It was dawn. The light was grey but strong enough for every detail to be sharply defined: the canvas of the tent ripped to shreds, Westerman and Corbella flat on their backs either dead or unconscious, and McBride on his feet, stark naked, in confrontation with the most incredible creature I have ever clapped eyes on. I say “incredible creature,” yet the first thing that struck me about him, the thing that almost made me burst out in a cackle of half-hysterical laughter, was his extraordinary resemblance to McBride! The creature was, it is true, a great deal bigger and hairier than the professor; but he had the same thick-set body, the same barrel chest, the same short, somewhat bandy legs, the same tangle of rust-red hair, the same pale, near-translucent skin and the same intolerant “what-do-you-want-damn-you” expression; only the shape of his head was different, the low back-ward-sloping skull of the ape-man being in sharp contrast to the broad cranium of the man-of-science. Their faces were inches apart, and they were glaring at one another with the ferocity of tom cats, each trying to make the other slink discomforted away. It would have been a sight to laugh at if my instinct hadn’t told me that our lives depended on whose eyes were first to drop.
Cameron writes a wonderfully Doyle/Verne novel here with ape creatures that are truly frightening. Something Michael Crichton did as well.
Congo (1980) by Michael Crichton has a group of scientist go off into the jungle to find their missing people and explain the destruction of their tech. They take an ape along as a guide but discover the lost city of Zinj and an entire race of killer apes as well as diamonds.
Crichton describes them in a post-mortum:
…Elliot spent two hours examining the animals, both adult males in the prime of life. The most striking feature was the uniform gray color. The two known races of gorilla, the mountain gorilla in Virunga, and the lowland gorilla near the coast, both had black hair. Infants were often brown with a white tuft of hair at the rump, but their hair darkened within the first five years…But from their teeth Elliot estimated that these males were no more than ten years old. All their pigmentation seemed lighter, eye and skin color as well as hair…With a knife, he dissected the head of the first animal, cutting away the gray skin yo reveal the underlying muscle and bone. His interest was the sagittal crest, the bony ridge running along the center of the skull from the forehead to the back of the neck…Elliot determined that the sagittal crest was poorly developed in these males. In general, the cranial musculature resembled a chimpanzee’s far more than a gorilla’s. Elliot made additional measurements of the molar cusps, the jaw, the simian shelf, and the brain case. By midday, his conclusion was clear: this was at least a new race of gorilla, equal to the mountain and lowland gorilla—and it was possibly a new species of animal entirely.
Elliot names the species after himself, Gorilla elliotensis. The humans are in big trouble but an erupting volcano seems pretty standard for an ending. Now unlike several of these stories above, we got a movie version of Congo and don’t have to try and imagine these “bad gorillas”. Crichton spent part of his career riffing on classic novels (Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, The Lost World). This time it was H. R. Haggard’s King Solomon Mines. And there! We have come full circle back to H. Rider Haggard.
Conclusion
I have certainly not collected every ape race in Pulp fiction here but I hope I have featured some of your favorites as well. (I know for a fact that Edgar Rice Burroughs has more.) What I hope I have done is trace a trend from Haggard to Crichton. 1885 to 1980 is almost a hundred years. And there will certainly be more ape beasties in the future.
In future posts I will want to look at the ape creatures of Science Fiction, which will feature Edgar Rice Burroughs again with his White Apes of Mars. The apes in this post all live on or in the Earth but when you go into outer space, well, Captain Kirk can get jumped by a white ape with a horn, can’t he?
So until next time, keep those bananas handy.
Space Opera from RAGE m a c h i n e
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