![]() ![]() He did not shirk from the violence around him and had the fighting skills to hold his own, yet through it all there was a sense of knowing that things did not need to be this way. A southern gentleman of the old school, I found his way of offering the hand of friendship to the Barsoomians, a pleasant contrast to the way men are often portrayed in present day. John Carter is a charming narrator in this tale filled with anti-gravity cars, majestic city-states, giant riding thoats, and barbarians of many races. Despite the novel having been written at least half a century before I was born, I was pulled in by the myriad of battling cultures, the intriguing scientific imaginings, and the emergence of love and friendship overcoming the hatred that drove all these different colored people of Mars. It was a well-worn, earmarked copy with a four-armed green giant battling a smaller, sword wielding man on the cover. I first discovered A Princess of Mars during my early teens at the public library. The captain spends much of the novel in pursuit of and in rescuing the princess as she is captured by various lustful villains. Driving John Carter to fight is his love for the beautiful princess, Dejah Thoris. ![]() His skills in battle become renown to all Barsoomians as he gradually battles his way to the top of their society. There on Barsoom, as the planet is known to the natives, he shows great physical prowess as the lighter gravity of the red planet allows him to leap about to the amazement of the four-armed, and tusked men known as Thrak. After an attack by Apaches, he is mysterious transported to the planet Mars. The novels have since not been out of print for the last 100 years.Ī Princess of Mars is the fictional travelogue of Captain John Carter, a Confederate soldier who prospects for gold in the American Southwest after the civil war. The Barsoom series featuring John Carter of Mars was born. His Tarzan of the Apes series was novelized first, followed by his first serial, renamed A Princess of Mars. Stories by Burroughs became popular with the public quickly and by 1914 two of his serials were re-printed as novels. The humble serial would become the inspiration of a new sub-genre in science fantasy, the planetary romance. Due to the typesetter believing that the author’s pen name “Normal Bean” was a typo, the author was listed as “Norman Bean”. The All-Story magazine bought his first story as a six part serial in 1912 and named it Under the Moons of Mars. In the end, he was too embarrassed by the tale to put his name on the manuscript. As he worked at his brother’s stationery company, he penned a novel on the company pads during his off-hours, telling no one but his wife about it. Being a fan of serial novels, he often told himself that he could write a better story than what he saw published in those pages. His business ventures had failed miserably and he needed more income to support his wife and two children. In 1911, thirty-five year old Edgar Rice Burroughs suffered a dilemma. ![]()
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