Under the Moons of Mars: A History and Anthology of "the Scientific Romance" in the Munsey Magazines, 1912-1920 (53 page)

What Metcalf did not tell Burroughs, but a fact sometimes even more important than the rate, was the promptness of payment. The Frank A. Munsey Company, through all of its successful period, paid virtually on acceptance. Such a policy was not common with many important magazines of the era.

Edgar Rice Burroughs mailed in a completed manuscript of sixty-three thousand words on September 28, 1911, which was acknowledged by Metcalf on October 6.

Metcalf made an offer of four hundred dollars to Burroughs on November 4, agreed to release book rights as previously requested, but asked for references as a check against plagiarism. He also urged that Burroughs try his hand at a historical novel along the lines of Sir Waller Scoll's
Ivanhoe
.

Burroughs mailed an acceptance of the terms on November 6 and acknowledged receipt of the check for four hundred dollars on November 17, but at the same time asked for better rates on future stories.

The final title of the story was decided by Metcalf, who entertained at least one variant before finalizing it in his mind, writing Burroughs on November 20 that he was going to call it
In the Moons of Mars
. The story opened in the February, 1912, THE ALL-STORY MAGAZINE as
Under the Moons of Mars
and led off the issue. It did not receive the cover, which, painted by Gordon Grant, illustrated no story in the issue but showed a black-sombreroed Mexican, elbow on an open window, lighting a cigarette. Up until July, 1911, THE ALL-STORY MAGAZINE had carried no interior illustrations. With that issue it commenced to present effective illustrated story titles, and
Under the Moons of Mars
received a sketch outlining a six-limbed Martian with horn-shaped ears, standing with his spear against the horizon of his planet. It was the policy of the magazine to use the same cut on each installment of a serial, so for the six issues from February through to July, 1912, this small illustration came to symbolize Burroughs. For the next few years, the peculiar, cartoon-style Martian would become a trademark of the Martian series, being commented upon editorially and even appearing in full color on later covers.

The artist did not sign his name to it, so it probably was not Clinton Pettee, J. Norman Lynd,
^*
Fairchild, or the artist who initialed himself "M.S." Whoever he was, upon receiving the assignment he was given the author's name as Normal Bean, the editors having failed to recognize that the pen name "Normal Bean" was a disclaimer. Since "bean" was then popular slang for "head," leading to the coining of the term "bean ball" to indicate a baseball pitcher who deliberately throws at a batter's head, Burroughs was trying to tell the readers that, despite his imagination, he was perfectly normal.

The artist
hand-lettered
the title and author's name around his illustration. Once an engraving was made, it was too late to change it. Had the name been hand-set, the error could have been caught in proofreading, or at least with a succeeding installment of the serial. It ended up appearing on all six parts of the story.

To shorten the early part of the novel, which established the background of the lead character, John Carter, the editor, eliminated a one thousand four hundred-word preface and rewrote it to occupy only two hundred and fifty words. Paragraphs were shortened, and there was minor revision in various portions of the novel. When it eventually appeared in hardcovers under the title
A Princess of Mars
, published by A. C. McClurg & Co. in October, 1917, the original preface was restored, none of the editorial changes were incorporated, and even the author's own paragraphing was reinstated. Throughout his career Burroughs, whether graciously or begrudgingly agreeing to change, would figuratively lift his thumb to his nose and waggle his fingers at the editor when the time came to put his work into book form.

Readers of the February, 1912, issue of THE ALL-STORY MAGAZINE were told in an "Editor's Note" that the lead character of
Under the Moons of Mars
was named John Carter, was of indeterminate age, had served four years in the Confederate Army, and had been honorably discharged. He had risen to captain in that service, and was a man two inches over six feet in height with the build of an athlete. He disappears from sight of man for more than fifteen years, then returns to the palisades of the Hudson River, where he is eventually found dead in the snow, and his body is consigned without embalming to a vault.

A manuscript is left to Edgar Rice Burroughs as the executor of his estate, and it is its content which the readers of THE ALL-STORY magazine now read.

After discharge from the Confederate forces, Captain John Carter sets out on a prospecting trip to the West. In a flight from hostile Indians, he enters a cave and is rendered unconscious by some factor in the air of the natural chamber. When he comes to, he finds that he is separated from his body, which is resting prone on the cavern floor. Emerging, he sees the tiny red orb of Mars in the sky, and to a fighting man it "seemed to call across the unthinkable void."

When he next regains awareness, he is on Mars, having been drawn there by some mystical process which could not be fathomed. He discovers that his earthly muscles give him tremendous strength and power pitted against the lighter gravitational pull of the Red World. He chances upon a Martian hatchery and encounters fifteen-foot-high green men with six limbs (four arms) mounted on eight-legged hairless creatures ten feet high at the shoulders, with ponderous broad flat tails and tremendous mouths "which split its head from its snout to its long, massive neck." As he later discovers, these creatures were thoats. The Martians carry forty-foot spears, but they have automatic weapons capable of firing two hundred miles.

Carter is saved by impressing the Martians with an exhibition of his tremendous agility under the minimized gravitation, and is taken back to their city.

Despite a high degree of technical and biological knowledge, the Martians engage in continual warfare with rather primitive weapons. The warfare is necessary to keep the population in check, for the average Martian has a normal life span of almost one thousand years, is rarely downed by a serious disease, and the resources of the aging world are becoming less capable of supporting the population annually.

Burroughs' careful description of the culture of the green Martians is the portion that Metcalf wanted to condense to speed up action, but it is fascinatingly done in the manner of the best Utopias, and essential to the enjoyment of the story.

The green giants raise their children from eggs in incubators, eschew manifestations of sentiment and kindness, and teach them to glorify in battle. Telepathic communications can be picked up by John Carter, but his mind remains inscrutably closed to the Martians.

John Carter gains the loyalty of a gigantic, fantastically ugly, eight-foot "dog" as big as a Shetland pony that is appointed to guard him; wins the admiration of Tars Tarkas, a regional leader of the green men, and the respect of the otherwise cold-blooded community for his physical prowess. One day, when a perfectly Earthlike copper-colored woman, Dejah Thoris, a princess of the city of Helium on Mars, is captured, he has enough standing to protect her from harm. Their relationship develops into love.

There is a series of adventures which eventually result in the alliance of the red humanoid race of Helium with the green giants, and the overthrow of the country of the Zodogans, whose leader Dejah Thoris had promised to marry to save her kingdom.

After a brief period of happiness in which John Carter and Dejah Thoris are married, the destruction of the planet is threatened by the failure of the air-manufacturing plant. John Carter ventures to enter the almost impregnable structure before the air grows too thin to support life. He has gained entry, and his last memory is the sight of a Martian, who can sustain himself on less air than an Earth man, crawling toward the pumps. When he comes to, he is back in his body on earth, an outcast on his own world, imploring fate to send him back to the ancient globe, which contains everything that he loves and that is meaningful lo him.

Those who have gained a stereotyped concept of Burroughs as a writer who conveys his plot line on a nonstop Jetstream of action, moving his characters along so swiftly that readers cannot react to his (laws, are in great error.

The fascination of Burroughs rests in the careful delineation of the setting in which he has placed his characters and the sharpness with which he etches them, presenting their weaknesses as well as strengths, their eccentricities, philosophies, and environmental shapings. A character may be villainous in motivation, but nevertheless strikingly courageous. A hero may do a foolish or unbecoming deed through pride or vanity. Political expediency may turn enemies into allies and then into firm friends.

Under the Moons of Mars
, unlike
Tarzan of the Apes
, is not a satiric and at times damning criticism of "civilized" man, but instead a brief for the family ties, post-Victorian social customs, and standards of morality of Burroughs' day. He shows what distortions can result from a more efficient and scientifically run social order. It was almost an anticipation of certain socialist and fascistic governments.

There would be times in later years when he would be accused of borderline racism in his handling of African savages, but the message of
Under the Moons of Mars
that the outward form of a creature, no matter how bizarre, is not the measure of his value appears to anticipate and negate most such criticisms.

The readers of
Under the Moons of Mars
were getting marvelous escape into a never-never-land where no present-day elements could intrude. With no more training than the good fortune of being born with Earthly muscles, they were able to defeat alien giants and gain great respect and high position among a very civilized people. There was a noble and high-minded princess for the men to fall in love with and marry. Yet, all these elements of escapism, which Burroughs claims were at least in part derived from his own imaginings while tossing and turning from insomnia during financially taut years, are accomplished without stretching the moral standards of the people who indulge in them.

Perhaps most important, Edgar Rice Burroughs was a natural-born storyteller who lured the reader into the story and carried him effortlessly along as skillfully as almost any writer in English literature.

The response to his brand of literary entertainment evidenced itself swiftly when THE ALL-STORY MAGAZINE installed a reader's department with the August, 1912, issue, titled "All-Story Table-Talk." In the September department the editor revealed that Norman Bean was actually the pen name for Edgar Rice Burroughs. He confessed his own dereliction in corrupting the name form Normal to Norman, but said that, in the future, stories would appear under the author's actual name. The readers were also told that "You know what a good story '
Under the Moons of Mars
' was and how Mr. Burroughs' imagination got loose and did whatever it wanted to—well the same thing has happened again. ..."

The reference was to
Tarzan of the Apes
, which he was announcing for the October, 1912, issue. "It's a crackerjack," the editor said. ". . . If you will stop and realize how many thousands and thousands of stories an editor has to read, day in, day out, you will be impressed when we tell you that we read this yarn at one sitting and had the time of our young lives. It is the most exciting story we have seen in a blue moon, and about as original as they make 'em."

What the readers weren't told was that the magazine had come close to missing out on this landmark.

When Metcalf had asked Burroughs to try his hand at a historical story after accepting
Under the Moons of Mars
, he had been taken literally, and on November 29, 1911, received a complete novel,
The Outlaw of Torn
. Laid in thirteenth-century England, the story deals with the kidnapping of the infant royal prince of England from his mother, Eleanor, Queen of England, and his upbringing in an ancient French castle by a master swordsman who intends to use him as an instrument of vengeance. The boy, when grown, frustrates the British in his identity as Norman of Torn and finally gains the British throne as King Richard.

Metcalf did not like the novel and on December 21, 1911, returned it with comprehensive criticism.

Burroughs worked hard on revision and mailed it February 2, 1912, to Metcalf with two endings, one happy and the other unhappy. In a letter accompanying the manuscript, he asked that his real name be used and not Norman or Normal Bean.

What transpired was one of the major disappointments of Burroughs' writing career. Metcalf told him that he didn't care for the revision and doubted Burroughs' ability to rework the novel properly. He offered to buy the plot for one hundred dollars and turn it over to another author, who was an expert on medieval lore, for rewriting. Burroughs would receive a by-line.

In the same letter, he asked for a sequel to
Under the Moons of Mars
. In that story Burroughs had alluded several times to the fact that those Martians who attained the age of one thousand years voluntarily traveled to the valley of Dor, where, from the sea of Korus, flowed the river Iss, "which leads no living Martian knows whither and from whose bosom no Martian has ever returned, or would be allowed to live did he return after once embarking upon its cold, dark waters." Metcalf asked that Burroughs develop the mystical aspects of the valley of Dor, sea of Korus, and the River Iss in a sequel, for he found those ideas fascinating.

Burroughs rejected Metcalf's offer to buy the plot of
The Outlaw of Torn
in a letter of March 6, but was open to developing a Mars sequel, possibly along the lines suggested.

As the letters of praise began to pour in following the publication of the early installments of
Under the Moons of Mars
, Metcalf quite understandably began to worry whether or not he was taking Burroughs too much for granted. The acclamation arriving by the daily mail indicated that a once-in-a-lifetime literary discovery had been made and special handling was in order.