A Princess of Mars

A Princess of Mars

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Title: A Princess of Mars
Author: Edgar Rice Burroughs
Release Date: April, 1993 [EBook #62] [This file was last updated on February 15, 2005]
Edition: 13
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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Corrections supplied in November 2001 by Andrew Sly. Illustrations for the HTML
format provided by Tim Holmes.

A PRINCESS OF MARS
by Edgar Rice Burroughs

To My Son Jack

FOREWORD
To the Reader of this Work:
In submitting Captain Carter's strange manuscript to you in book form, I believe that a
few words relative to this remarkable personality will be of interest.
My first recollection of Captain Carter is of the few months he spent at my father's home
in Virginia, just prior to the opening of the civil war. I was then a child of but five years,
yet I well remember the tall, dark, smooth-faced, athletic man whom I called Uncle Jack.
He seemed always to be laughing; and he entered into the sports of the children with the
same hearty good fellowship he displayed toward those pastimes in which the men and
women of his own age indulged; or he would sit for an hour at a time entertaining my old
grandmother with stories of his strange, wild life in all parts of the world. We all loved
him, and our slaves fairly worshipped the ground he trod.
He was a splendid specimen of manhood, standing a good two inches over six feet, broad
of shoulder and narrow of hip, with the carriage of the trained fighting man. His features
were regular and clear cut, his hair black and closely cropped, while his eyes were of a
steel gray, reflecting a strong and loyal character, filled with fire and initiative. His
manners were perfect, and his courtliness was that of a typical southern gentleman of the
highest type.
His horsemanship, especially after hounds, was a marvel and delight even in that country
of magnificent horsemen. I have often heard my father caution him against his wild
recklessness, but he would only laugh, and say that the tumble that killed him would be
from the back of a horse yet unfoaled.
When the war broke out he left us, nor did I see him again for some fifteen or sixteen
years. When he returned it was without warning, and I was much surprised to note that he
had not aged apparently a moment, nor had he changed in any other outward way. He
was, when others were with him, the same genial, happy fellow we had known of old, but
when he thought himself alone I have seen him sit for hours gazing off into space, his
face set in a look of wistful longing and hopeless misery; and at night he would sit thus
looking up into the heavens, at what I did not know until I read his manuscript years
afterward.
He told us that he had been prospecting and mining in Arizona part of the time since the

war; and that he had been very successful was evidenced by the unlimited amount of
money with which he was supplied. As to the details of his life during these years he was
very reticent, in fact he would not talk of them at all.
He remained with us for about a year and then went to New York, where he purchased a
little place on the Hudson, where I visited him once a year on the occasions of my trips to
the New York market--my father and I owning and operating a string of general stores
throughout Virginia at that time. Captain Carter had a small but beautiful cottage, situated
on a bluff overlooking the river, and during one of my last