The original man of action: A lifelong equestrian, Burroughs excelled at all aspects of horsemanship (left). John Carter’s premiere adventure under its original title (above).


pencil sharpener company he found himself in an extended period of unemployment—bad news for a man with a growing family to support. Burroughs’ financial situation became so dire, McWhorter notes, that at one point he was forced to pawn his wristwatch and Emma’s jewelry to put food on the table. By the time Burroughs started writing A PRINCESS OF MARS in July 1911, he had moved on from selling pencil sharpeners to working at his brother Coleman’s stationery firm. Here he found an abundant supply of old letterheads, the backs of which he used to write much of the first draft of A PRINCESS OF MARS. Despite what Burroughs often told journalists years later, A PRINCESS OF MARS was not really his first foray into fiction. In fact, Burroughs had been writing for enjoyment since he was a child, and as an adult often created whimsical stories and rhymes to entertain his children, nieces, and nephews. His most industrious attempt at fiction prior to A PRINCESS OF MARS was a fantasy titled MINIDOKA, 937th


EARL OF ONE MILE SERIES M,


which he wrote for his children. The book did not see print until 1998, when Dark Horse published it with illustrations by Michael Kaluta.


30 FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND • MAR/APR 2012


Unsure how the publishing business worked, Burroughs submitted the first half of A PRINCESS OF MARS to leading pulp fiction magazine ARGOSY—more than 42,000 words—rather than sending a short synopsis. “Luckily, the editors liked it so much that they accepted it and serialized it [in a sister publication called THE ALL-STORY] from February to July 1912 with the title UNDER THE MOONS OF MARS,” McWhorter notes. Burroughs received $400 for UNDER THE MOONS OF MARS,


a tidy sum for a man in such financial straits. Written in the first person, it tells the story of John Carter, a dashing Civil War veteran and Indian fighter, who finds himself mysteriously transported to the planet Mars—called Barsoom by its inhabitants—where he falls in love with the gorgeous princess Dejah Thoris and proves his fighting prowess against an array of alien foes. Burroughs wrote nine official sequels and, in 1964, Canaveral Press published JOHN CARTER OF MARS, which collected two Barsoom novelettes that Burroughs had published in the pulps years earlier. The success of UNDER THE MOONS OF MARS was immediate, and Burroughs rightly believed that writing was what he was meant to do. However, his second novel, THE OUTLAW


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