At the Earth’s Core was serialized in All-Story Weekly in April 1914, then published in book form by A.C. McClurg & Co. in 1922. The novel introduces Pellucidar — a world inside the hollow Earth, lit by a miniature sun suspended at the center, where prehistoric creatures survive and primitive human tribes are enslaved by the Mahars, a species of intelligent reptiles with telepathic powers.
David Innes, a young Connecticut mining heir, finances the construction of an “iron mole” — a mechanical burrowing device — invented by his friend Abner Perry. Their test run goes wrong: the machine burrows straight through the Earth’s crust and into Pellucidar, where they are immediately captured by the Mahars’ gorilla-like servants, the Sagoths.
Burroughs’s hollow-earth premise draws on the speculative tradition running from Edmond Halley through John Cleves Symmes to Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth. But where Verne imagined underground caverns, Burroughs imagines an entire interior surface — a world as vast as the exterior, with its own geography, ecology, and civilizations. The absence of horizon (the land curves upward in all directions), the eternal noon (the central sun never sets), and the resulting impossibility of measuring time create an otherworldly atmosphere distinct from both Tarzan’s Africa and Carter’s Mars.
The novel initiated a seven-book Pellucidar series. Its influence extends through the “lost world” and “hollow earth” traditions of science fiction and adventure literature.
Collecting At the Earth’s Core
First edition (A.C. McClurg & Co., Chicago, 1922): Red cloth binding.
Market values:
- First edition, fine/fine: $800–$2,000
- Very good/very good: $300–$800
- Good: $100–$300