The First and Only Weekly Online Fanzine Devoted to the Life and Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs |
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Virtual
Tour & Scrapbook 17:
UNDER
THE MOONS OF MARS
Pulp
Magazines
From
the photo collection of
Bob
"Tarak" Woodley
All-Story Magazine ~ February - July, 1912
A Princess of Stories
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Here I happily hold the true infancy of ERB. The first publication of the first chapters of “Under the Moons of Mars.” This is it. This is the February, 1912 issue of “All-Story” a pulp which perhaps grumpy and tired readers opened one day or night, after a hard day’s work, probably in late December of 1911 or early January of 1912. Outside the wind blew and snow was perhaps falling. Life was hard, and pleasures were few. Money was scarce for many, but they spent their ten cents each month in hopes that they would be transported away from the often dreary reality of their own lives; to adventurous places where dwelt handsome men and beautiful women; and where excitement and love and honor and courage were the standards. |
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“In February will appear the first installment of NORMAL BEAN’S UNDER THE MOONS OF MARS A surprisingly vivid Interplanetary romance....................” |
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| I don’t know how frequently such readers dealt with interplanetary romances, vivid or otherwise, but this certainly must have piqued their interest. The cover story that month was “Prince Imbecile”, so this must have heralded at least a bit of an imaginative departure. I suppose this was delivered a month or so prior to the January publication date, so readers probably first heard of this story in November or December, 1911. |
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It didn’t make the cover, but inside it received
top billing, just above the first installment of “The Hand of Hate”,
and the second installment of Prince Imbecile.
“Six Serial Stories. UNDER THE MOONS OF MARS,
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Then you turn to that page, and there it is. The “editor’s note” type of beginning which ERB used sometimes, and to such great effect...
| Relative to Captain Carter's strange story a
few words, concerning his remarkable personality, are not out of place.
At the time of his demise, Captain Carter was a man of uncertain age and vast experience, honorable and abounding with true fellowship. He stood a good two inches over six feet, was broad of shoulder and narrow of hip, with the carriage of the trained fighting man. His features were regular and clear-cut, his eyes steel gray, reflecting a strong and loyal character. He was a Southerner of the highest type. He had enlisted at the outbreak of the War, fought through the four years, and had been honorably discharged. Then for more than a decade he was gone from the sight of his fellows. When he returned he had changed, there was a kind of wistful longing and hopeless misery in his eyes, and he would sit for hours at night, staring up into the starlit heavens. His death occurred upon a winter's night. He was discovered by the watchman of his little place on the Hudson, full length in the snow, his arms outstretched above his head toward the edge of the bluff. Death had come to him upon the spot where curious villagers had so often, on other nights, seen him standing rigid -- his arms raised in supplication to the skies. Editor's Note
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...and then: “I am a very old man; how old, I do now know.”
At the top we have our very first ERB art. A green man with his spear. Perhaps a city far in the background, and perhaps Thuria rising or setting above an alien landscape. From only this and the words of the writer would visions of Barsoom be woven into the minds and imaginations of these first readers.Unfortunately the story stops just when John Carter has escaped his guardian calot, but suddenly has been grasped by a white ape. What must it have been like to have read those first twenty-some pages and to have to wait another month for the story to continue? I just can’t imagine.
Next month we get to Chapter VI, however; and we get something else; a synopsis of the preceding month(s)’ story. This is something I had never seen, and I read each of these as I looked at the six pulps which contain this story.
Finally, on page 598, in the July issue of All-Story, we are able to conclude this story; or to the extent which is possible given the ending:
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“I can see her shining in the sky through the little window by my desk, and to-night she seems calling to me again as she had not called before since that long dead night. I think I can see, across that awful abyss, a beautiful black-haired woman standing in the garden of a palace, and at her side is a little boy who puts his arm around her as she points to the sky toward the planet earth. I think I see them, and something tells me I shall soon know.” |
Thus did Edgar Rice Burroughs leave his readers spellbound in July, 1912, with such prose and such imagination and such a longing need for more.And soon he would deliver. The next two issues were devoid of his writing skills; but the second of those months; September, 1912, would mention a new story which would appear in the October issue. In fact it would set forth a brief discussion of the story, for the editor had read it on one sitting and had been mesmerized. And so too would the world be mesmerized, for that story would be “Tarzan of the Apes”.
All-Story Table-Talk
Letters to the Editor
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[We thought that "Under the Moons
of Mars" was] about as original a yarn as has been seen in a long while,
and we shall be very much disappointed if we don't hear the same from some
of our friendly readers. Every time a letter comes that seems to back up
some choice or other which we have made, we are a great deal more than
pleased. For instance, take this letter from W.A.E.:
Seattle, Washington, July 8, 1912
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I note that W.A.E. asked the editors of All-Story not to print any more stories like "The Bustle", which obviously suffered from its placement immediately following the last words of Under the Moons of Mars. How could anything seem good after that?
e-Mail:
Tarak
Tarak's Lands of Adventure:
www.geocities.com/danestargems/
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