A baby boy, left alone in the African jungle after the deaths of his parents, Lord and Lady Greystoke, is adopted by an ape and raised to manhood without ever seeing another human being.

The young Tarzan was unlike the great apes who were his only companions and playmates. Theirs was a simple, savage life, filled with little but killing or being killed. But Tarzan had all of a normal boy's desire to learn. He had painfully taught himself to read from books left by his dead father. Now he sought to apply this book knowledge to the world around him. He sought for such things as the source of dreams and the whereabouts of God. And he...

The story of Tarzan, an orphaned boy raised in the jungle by an ape named Kala, who grows up wondering why he is so different from his ape family. When he finally meets some humans, including the adventurous Jane, he is torn between the worlds of humans and apes.

"This book examines Tarzan in his various media representations--hunter, warrior, secret agent, fighter of communists and Nazis--and in his numerous story arcs, including crossover adventures featuring historical characters like Arthur Conan Doyle and Nikola Tesla"--