Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar

Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar was published in 1916 and is the fifth book in the sequence. The plot is built around the lost city of Opar, first introduced in The Return of Tarzan. Tarzan, whose plantation has suffered financial losses, travels back to Opar to retrieve more of the gold treasure he had found there years before. He is captured by the High Priestess La, who has decided she still loves him and intends to keep him this time.

Meanwhile a Belgian villain named Werper has stolen the famous jewels of Opar from the temple and is fleeing across the jungle. Tarzan, escaping La, suffers a serious head injury that gives him temporary amnesia, after which most of the middle section of the book proceeds with an amnesiac Tarzan acting on instinct rather than memory. The jewels and the amnesia plot lines eventually resolve into the book’s climax. The amnesia device is melodramatic but well used. La is one of Burroughs’s most complex recurring antagonists. A strong mid-series entry.