The Return of Tarzan

The Return of Tarzan was published in 1913, the year after the original, and resolves the situation Tarzan left at the end of the first book. Tarzan had given up his rightful inheritance, including Jane Porter, in favor of his cousin William Cecil Clayton. Now in Paris and on the steamships of the early Mediterranean, he becomes involved with a Russian intelligence operation, a deceitful Russian noblewoman, and a series of attempts on his life by the spy Rokoff.

The second act of the book moves the action back to Africa, where Tarzan crashes off the coast and walks back into his jungle. The novel introduces the lost city of Opar, populated by degenerate descendants of an Atlantean civilization, ruled by the priestess La. Tarzan and Jane are eventually reunited and married by the end of the book. The novel essentially doubles the scope of the first one, giving Burroughs the wider canvas he needed to keep the series going for another two decades. Required reading directly after Tarzan of the Apes.