A Princess of Mars

By Edgar Rice Burroughs

Captain John Carter, a Virginian who fought for the Confederacy and does not know his own age, is prospecting for gold in the Arizona hills in 1866 when Apaches kill his partner and drive him into a mountain cave. Something in the cave leaves him paralysed, and when he at last stands outside and fixes his eyes on the red planet, he finds himself on Mars, which its people call Barsoom. Its weaker gravity makes the Earthman astonishingly strong and quick, which is the first thing the green Martians notice when they take him prisoner: a towering, four-armed nomadic warrior people, among whom a chieftain named Tars Tarkas and a young woman named Sola show him something like friendship. Then the green Martians bring down a fleet of red Martian airships, and among the captives is Dejah Thoris, a princess of the city of Helium. The novel opens Edgar Rice Burroughs's Barsoom series.

Description community-written - CC BY-SA 4.0.

Series

• Barsoom - book 1

Guides

• Chapter-by-chapter recap of A Princess of Mars
• A Princess of Mars character guide

Genres: action-adventure, classics, science-fiction

Recordings