Tarzan of the Apes was the first of twenty-four Tarzan novels that Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote over the course of three decades. Most of this introductory novel describes Tarzan's upbringing in a tribe of African apes and his self-education in written English, but it ends by telling a little of his entry into the world of civilized humankind. The novel begins with a storyteller's disclaimer about having gotten the story from an unspecified man who had Colonial Office records to verify the tale. Burroughs then turns to third-person narration, first through the point of view of Tarzan's father, then largely through that of Tarzan himself.