The Land That Time Forgot
The Caspak Trilogy, Volume 1 – Large Print
by Edgar Rice Burroughs
“The Land That Time Forgot” is known as “Caspak,” the native name for the island of Caprona, located somewhere in or near the Antarctic. Reported by the Italian explorer Caproni in 1721, the island’s location was subsequently “lost”. Both the island and the explorer are of course entirely fictional, and the island provides the setting for what has over the years become known as Edgar Rice Burroughs’ science fiction/fantasy “Caspak Trilogy.”
Originally written under the working title “The Lost U-Boat” and published as a three-part serial in, the three tales chronicle the adventures of the survivors of a torpedoed ship and the German u-boat crew on the lost island of “Caprona”, and the members of the expedition that sets out to rescue the survivors. Later published as a novel under the title “The Land That Time Forgot”, the serial segments, clearly parts of a single narrative, were subsequently published as three separate short novels in paperbacks widely available for many years, and that presentation became the norm, establishing the three stories as the “Caspak Trilogy.”
In Edgar Rice Burroughs’ trademark style, the lost mariners are thrown into a series of non-stop adventures at a breakneck pace, with the Germans pitted against the British and American survivors, the humans pitted against dinosaurs and other monstrous creatures, and the modern castaways in conflict with the native inhabitants, themselves divided into groups at distinctly different human evolutionary stages and harboring a bizarre secret that dominates human life on the island.
In “The Land That Time Forgot”, Bowen Tyler, scion of an American shipbuilding family, narrates the adventures of the castaways, and then his own story after he becomes separated from the group, introducing the reader to the weird and violent world in the tropical interior of the island. “The People That Time Forgot” follows the story of Tom Billings, leader of an expedition that sets out to rescue Tyler by scaling the towering frozen cliffs that ring the island. In the course of his own adventures, Billings discovers the secret at the heart of the bizarre world, only hinted at in the first segment: Burroughs’ own wild spin on the theory of evolution. And in “Out of Time’s Abyss” Burroughs circles back to a member of the group who disappeared in the first story, ultimately wrapping up the narrative and accounting for the various groups who have become separated along the way.
This quality large print edition includes the complete text of the first of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ “Caspak Trilogy” in a freshly edited and newly formatted edition. Not a machine-scanned text or “blown-up” version of an older edition, it has been edited and formatted by human editors working from the original published text.
With a generous 6×9 page size, this Apex edition is printed on hefty bright white paper with a fully laminated cover featuring an original full color design. Additional material includes a retrospective essay commenting on the life, work, and widespread and lasting influence of the author, a biographical sketch of Burroughs’ life, and a detailed bibliography of his work.
Product details
Publisher: Apex Publications, Independently published (June 29, 2024)
Language: English
Paperback: 233 pages
ISBN: 979-8325248566
Item Weight: 14.7 ounces
Dimensions: 6 x 0.53 x 9 inches