The Efficiency Expert is a novella by the American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, written in 1919 and serialized in All-Story Weekly from October 1921. It is one of his few works set in the contemporary United States rather than in jungles or alien worlds. The protagonist, Jimmy Torrance, is a campus celebrity—captain of the football team, boxing champion, baseball star—who nearly gets expelled at graduation but manages to secure a chance to graduate. He rejects his father's plan to bring him into the family business and insists on making his own way in Chicago. Yet campus glory proves useless in the real world: he runs into rejection everywhere, nearly exhausts his savings, and works a series of temporary jobs—sales clerk at a department store's women's hosiery counter, restaurant waiter, prizefighter, milkman—and through these humble occupations befriends marginal figures such as the pickpocket "the Lizard" and Edith, known as "Little Eva," while repeatedly encountering the society girl Elizabeth Compton. Compton's father runs a factory that, being unprofitable, places a newspaper advertisement seeking an "efficiency expert." Edith sees the ad, encourages Jimmy to apply, and forges letters of recommendation for him. Jimmy lands the job and begins reforming the factory while noticing that someone inside is embezzling—and the embezzler is none other than Elizabeth's fiancé, assistant manager Harold Bines. As the truth closes in, Bines frames Jimmy; Mr. Compton is murdered, and Jimmy is charged with the crime, finally clearing his name only when "the Lizard" testifies in court. Researchers generally believe the work draws on Burroughs's own experience of repeated job-hunting setbacks before he found fame, giving it an autobiographical flavor.
提起巴勒斯，多数读者想到的是泰山与火星上的约翰·卡特；《The Efficiency Expert》却把场景搬到战后的芝加哥街头，写一个名校毕业生如何被现实社会的规则反复捶打。它的妙处在于反差：一个在校园里无所不能的“大人物”，到职场却连一份像样的工作都保不住，只能靠打零工、认识三教九流的朋友勉强度日。小说前半部近于轻喜剧式的求职流水账，中段转入工厂里的经济犯罪，末段又变成一桩谋杀栽赃案，节奏虽不算工整，却读来轻快，人物鲜活——扒手“蜥蜴”和“小伊娃”这两个出身底层的配角，反倒比体面人更有情义。这部作品篇幅不长，属公版书，英文原版与公共领域有声书都容易获得，适合作为进入巴勒斯非奇幻作品的入门读物，也适合对二十世纪初美国城市社会感兴趣的读者，从虚构故事里窥见那个时代的就业、阶层与商业生态。
这本书和泰山、火星系列有关系吗？
没有直接关系。它是巴勒斯少数以当时美国为背景的现实题材中篇小说，没有丛林、异星或失落文明元素，主人公是芝加哥的求职青年，而不是泰山或约翰·卡特。
这本书的中文译名是什么？
目前没有广为人知的通行中文译本，中文出版信息难以核实。常见译法有“效率专家”等，但不同译法并不统一，检索时建议直接使用英文原名。
这本书最初是怎样出版的？
巴勒斯于1919年写成，1921年10月起在《All-Story Weekly》杂志分四期连载；首次以单行本形式出版是1966年由House of Greystoke推出的版本。
故事主要讲什么？
讲大学风云人物吉米·托兰斯毕业后拒绝家族安排，独自到芝加哥谋生，屡屡失业，后因一则“效率专家”招聘启事进入工厂，查出贪污案并遭人陷害获罪，最终靠底层朋友作证洗清罪名。
这本书现在还能免费读到吗？
可以。该书初版于1921年，在美国已进入公有领域，可在维基文库、古腾堡计划等平台读到原文，LibriVox上也有公共领域的英文有声书。
Edgar Rice Burroughs was an important early writer of popular adventure fiction. Public information about the details of his life is limited, yet his works have had a lasting influence. This library holds three of his works: Warlord of Mars, Pellucidar, and Tarzan of the Apes, which point respectively to Martian adventure, the strange inner world, and jungle coming-of-age themes. Burroughs's writing is known for its brisk pace and bold imagination; he often places protagonists in unfamiliar and dangerous settings, driving their growth through survival tests and self-discipline, which is why his works are often classified as inspirational coming-of-age fiction. His Tarzan figure in particular has become an enduring symbol in popular culture. Overall, Burroughs expanded the imaginative space of popular literature through fantastical settings and adventure narratives, and his influence on later science fiction and adventure writing remains significant.
