Edgar Rice Burroughs 3 hr 55 min read

A Confederate veteran is mysteriously transported to Mars, where lighter gravity makes him a superman among warring alien races.

Edgar Rice Burroughs's 1912 classic launches the Barsoom saga with John Carter's arrival on a dying Mars of four-armed green Tharks, red-skinned humans, and the incomparable princess Dejah Thoris. Swashbuckling, endlessly imitated, and pure adventure, it founded the whole tradition of planetary romance and inspired generations from Bradbury to Star Wars. Read it for the wellspring of sword-and-planet adventure, as thrilling now as in 1912.

In its time

Published in 1912, during the 1910s, lost worlds and interplanetary adventure.

Reading it

3 hr 55 min read (a novel-length work, settle in).