A flying plane dropped out of the night. It seemed a spectral ship. Silently and quickly it landed behind Sanoma Tora and Sil Vagis. Warriors sprang from its low cabin. Sanoma Tora was seized roughly from behind. With the sudden mysterious disappearance of Sanoma Tora, one of the richest heiresses of Mars, begins this tale of breathless adventure in a strange, fantastic world. A story of reckless love on a far-off planet.
Edgar Rice Burroughs is one of the world's most popular authors. With no previous experience as an author, he wrote and sold his first novel-_A Princess of Mars_-in 1912. In the ensuing thirty-eight years until his death in 1950, Burroughs wrote ninety-one books and a host of short stories and articles. Although best known as the creator of the classic Tarzan of the Apes and John Carter of Mars, his restless imagination knew few bounds. Burroughs's prolific pen ranged from the American West to primitive Africa and on to romantic adventure on the moon, the planets, and even beyond the farthest star.
No one knows how many copies of ERB books have been published throughout the world. It is conservative to say, however, that with the translations into thirty-two known languages, including Braille, the number must ran into the hundreds of millions. When one considers the additional worldwide following of the Tarzan newspaper feature, radio programs, comic magazines, motion pictures, and television, Burroughs must have been known and loved by literally a thousand million or more.
