"Mapping Fiction" exhibition, the Huntington.

The "Mapping Fiction" exhibition at Los Angeles' Huntington Library features the role of maps in fiction and is on view until May 2. It includes Loren Latker's "Shamus Town" map of the Raymond Chandler Mystery Map of Los Angeles and an orange crate label from Tarzana Hills (originally named in honor of Edgar Rice Burroughs's Tarzan).

Bookplate collections.

Bookplate, LAPL

The Library of Congress has created a Flickr album of bookplates from one of its collections, which includes those of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Charlie Chaplin, Jack London, spy and mystery fan Woodrow Wilson, artist Francis Millet (who died on the Titanic), and "the doctor for weak railroads" Newman Erb (which includes an illustration of Edgar Allan Poe, left).

Harvard's Houghton Library has a nifty collection, featuring items such as the Alice in Wonderland bookplate of Harcourt Amory. Another bookplate collection is housed at the Los Angeles Public Library.

Coming soon: ME exhibition on pulp cover art.

Opening on October 3 at the Portland (ME) Public Library is "The Pulps," an exhibition of original cover art for the pulps that will include Tarzan, the Shadow, and Doc Savage. The exhibition, cosponsored by the Maine College of Art, will run until December 26.

Edgar Rice Burroughs: "damned sick of hearing people apologize to me for reading my stories."

Over on Letters of Note: Even prolific Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875–1950) had some down moments. As he writes to his daughter in January 1941: "If anyone says a kind word about my work nowadays, as you did, I nearly break down and cry. I have had so many refusals lately and had my classics so gratuitously insulted over here that I have lost confidence in myself."

About the image: Bookplate of Edgar Rice Burroughs, bet. 1914 and 1922, by Studley Burroughs. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Happy birthday, Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs was born today in Chicago in 1875. His highly imaginative works include A Princess of Mars (1917), The Land That Time Forgot (1924), and Pirates of Venus (1934). Tarzan debuted in 1912 in All-Story Magazine and first appeared in book form in Tarzan of the Apes in 1914.

Tarzana, near Los Angeles, was named for Burroughs's famous creation in 1927 after Burroughs had lived in the area at Tarzana Ranch.

About the photo: A bookplate of Edgar Rice Burroughs, dated bet. 1914 to 1922. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, reproduction no. LC-DIG-ppmsca-15527.