This isn't like comic books, after all, where the characters are created with the assumption that others will handle their stories in later years. Burroughs did not create Tarzan to be "handed down".

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* My own vote would be "nay".

I could be wrong here, but I seem to remember from my distant youth that Farmer had all of Burroughs' heroes being the same person (or was it a shared universe and I'm confused?).

That is def. a step too far.

QUOTE: could be wrong here, but I seem to remember from my distant youth that Farmer had all of Burroughs' heroes being the same person (or was it a shared universe and I'm confused?). That is def. a step too far.

No, he didn't. Burroughs himself set up his characters as living in the same universe through the character of Jason Gridley who interacted with Tarzan, John Carter, David Innes and Carson Napier. 

An interesting question raised by this. If another writer, unconnected to the original creator, comes along years later and makes certain assertions about a character, do they "count"?*

***

No, they don't "count." 

In cases where I'm the one doing the reading or viewing, it tend to think of different versions of a character as different things entirely. The James Bond of the movies is not the "real" Bond that Fleming wrote about, but I can enjoy both series independently of each other.

From a personal creative point of view, I'd say that the Sherlock Holmes stories I've written are not valid in the sense of being a "real" continuation of Doyle's work (I couldn't be that arrogant; I'm lucky to have been one of many writers asked to borrow the character). My Holmes, or any later writer's, is not part of what Doyle wrote....but I tend to think of what Doyle wrote as being the foundation of what I write. In other words, he's the one who did it right and I would never knowingly contradict any of his material. So I do my best to continue in his tradition but his stuff is the only Holmes that truly counts.

I'd think of Tarzan in the same way.