The Return of Tarzan
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This classic adventure novel offers a thrilling blend of jungle survival, lost cities, and romance, exploring the timeless conflict between primal instinct and civilized morality.
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Book Summary
Tarzan returns to civilization but finds it corrupt, facing relentless persecution from his enemy Nikolas Rokoff. He embarks on adventures in Algeria and Africa, discovers a lost city, and ultimately reclaims his identity as Lord Greystoke while reuniting with Jane Porter.
After saving Count de Coude from a card-sharping plot on a liner, Tarzan makes a dangerous enemy of Nikolas Rokoff. In Paris, Tarzan refuses to claim his title as Lord Greystoke to avoid robbing Jane Porter of her future with Clayton. Rokoff frames Tarzan for attempting to seduce the countess, leading to a duel where Tarzan spares the count's life. Tarzan becomes a secret agent in Algeria, where he is ambushed by assassins hired by Rokoff. He befriends the Waziri tribe, becomes their king, and leads them to the lost city of Opar. There, he saves the high priestess La from sacrifice. Meanwhile, Jane Porter is shipwrecked and captured by ape-men, but Tarzan rescues her from Opar's altar. Clayton dies confessing his treachery, and Tarzan learns of a note proving his identity. Rokoff attempts to shoot Tarzan but is subdued. Tarzan and Jane reunite, and he embraces his heritage as Lord Greystoke, leaving his ape-man life behind.
Reading guide
Go deeper in The Return of Tarzan
Character guides, themes, chapter companions — plus Character Web, narrative arc, and theme heatmap teasers that unlock fully beside the text in BetterReads.
Narrative arc
Story tension across the book.
- Setup
- Escalation
- Breaking point
Tarzan
Tarzan moves through Parisian society as Monsieur Tarzan, a man whose instincts belong to the jungle even as his heart clings to Jane Porter, now promised to another. He craves companionship and the warmth of human speech, yet civilization fits him like an ill-cut coat, and his honest loyalty makes him an easy mark for schemers. His divided nature drives the novel's central question: can a man of two worlds ever belong to either?
Nikolas Rokoff
Rokoff moves through first-class decks and Parisian salons with the polish of a man who knows how to use other people's secrets. When Tarzan wrenches him from a veiled woman's wrist and hurls his revolver into the Atlantic, Rokoff does not rage for long — he calculates, and his threats are promises. His vendetta supplies the engine of the plot, turning Tarzan's chivalry into a liability and drawing everyone near him into danger.
Jane Porter
Jane has convinced herself that marrying Lord Greystoke is the only honorable course, and nothing short of death or Greystoke himself will change her mind. She speaks of the ape-man who saved her with a wonder she cannot quite hide, and her loyalty is both her finest quality and her heaviest chain. Her promise becomes the quiet ache beneath Tarzan's adventures, the reason his return to the jungle feels less like escape than exile.
William Cecil Clayton
Clayton is a decent man and a friend to D'Arnot, which makes him a far more painful rival than a villain would be. He possesses by law and accident what Tarzan possesses by blood, and he has no idea the ape-man exists as anything but a curiosity from Jane's African adventure. His engagement to Jane forces Tarzan into the hardest choice of his life — to take what is rightfully his or to let a good man keep what he has.
Monsieur Thuran
Thuran is all affability and easy conversation, the sort of man Miss Strong finds delightful and Tarzan finds unremarkable. When Mr. Caldwell vanishes from the Lady Alice, Thuran is the first to offer reasonable explanations and the last to seem troubled. His pleasant surface and convenient timing mark him as something other than what he appears, and his presence turns a quiet voyage into a trap.
Countess Olga de Coude
Olga de Coude owes Tarzan her husband's life and her own safety, and she knows Rokoff well enough to fear what he will do next. When she invites Tarzan to tea to warn him, she does not know that a bearded caller has already bribed her footman and hidden himself in an alcove. Her genuine warmth and Tarzan's untamed instincts collide in a moment of madness that nearly destroys a marriage and forces Tarzan to flee Paris.
Civilization vs. Wilderness
Tarzan struggles between the allure of civilized society and the freedom of the jungle, often finding civilized humans more brutal and corrupt than the beasts of the wild.
Honor and Chivalry
Tarzan consistently acts with a strong moral code, rescuing women in distress, defending the innocent, and refusing to take advantage of others, contrasting with the deceit and cowardice of antagonists like Rokoff.
Revenge and Persecution
Nikolas Rokoff and his accomplice Paulvitch relentlessly pursue Tarzan out of vengeance, orchestrating ambushes, framing him, and plotting his murder throughout the narrative.
Love and Sacrifice
Tarzan's love for Jane Porter drives him to renounce his title and endure great personal suffering, while Jane's loyalty and eventual reunion with Tarzan highlight the theme of enduring love overcoming obstacles.
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