His father had been a Union major in the Civil War. ERB attended the Brown School, then, due to a diphtheria epidemic, Miss Coolie's Maplehurst School for Girls, then the Harvard School, Phillips Andover and the Michigan Military Academy. He was a mediocre student and flunked his examination for West Point. He worked as a cowboy in Idaho, a gold miner in Oregon, a railroad policeman in Utah, a department manager for Sears, Roebuck in Chicago. He published A Princess of Mars under the title U ...[Read Story]