The poor woman, lying upon the floor, was quite conscious. Her eyes were wide and rolling in horror. She struggled with her bonds, and tried to force the gag from her mouth with her tongue; but her every effort was useless. She had heard every word that had passed between the two men. She knew that they would carry out the plan they had formulated and that there was no chance that they would be interrupted in their gruesome work... Edgar Rice Burroughs created one of the most iconic figures in American pop culture, Tarzan of the Apes, and it is impossible to overstate his influence on entire genres of popular literature in the decades after his enormously winning pulp novels stormed the public's imagination. The Mucker is considered by some to be Burroughs' finest novel, and its hero, Billy Byrne, his greatest character. An action-packed indictment of the economic ruin of America in the post-World War I period, it follows the misadventures of Byrne as he is forced into a life of crime that takes him from the slums of Chicago all the way to piracy and adventure in the South Seas. Originally serialized as The Mucker and The Return of the Mucker in All-Story Cavalier Weekly in 1914 and 1916, it was first published in one volume in 1921. Also available from Cosimo Classics: the sequel, The Oakdale Affair. American novelist EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS (1875-1950) wrote dozens of adventure, crime, and science-fiction novels that are still beloved today, including Tarzan of the Apes (1912), At the Earth's Core (1914), A Princess of Mars (1917), and Pirates of Venus (1934). He is reputed to have been reading a comic book when he died.