The Warlord of Mars was serialized in The All-Story from December 1913 to March 1914, then published in book form by A.C. McClurg & Co. in 1919. The novel resolves the cliffhanger of The Gods of Mars: Dejah Thoris is imprisoned with the villainous Thern leader Matai Shang and the wicked First Born Issus. Carter must pursue them across the entire planet — from the south polar region, through the equatorial kingdoms, to the frozen north — before he can rescue his princess and bring her captors to justice.
The novel functions primarily as a chase-and-rescue adventure, and its narrative pace is relentless. Burroughs moves Carter through diverse Martian landscapes — underground rivers, ice fields, hidden cities, volcanic regions — with the efficiency of a thriller writer who understands that momentum is everything in serial fiction.
The political resolution is significant: Carter’s victory unites the warring races of Barsoom (green, red, black, yellow, and white Martians) under a single authority for the first time in the planet’s history. He is proclaimed Warlord of Mars — not merely a military title but a recognition that he has achieved what no Martian could: the creation of a planetary community from warring factions.
This resolution reveals something about Burroughs’s political imagination: the unifier of Mars is an outsider, an Earthman whose alienness from all Martian racial categories allows him to transcend their conflicts. It is a fantasy of American exceptionalism projected onto another planet.
Collecting The Warlord of Mars
First edition (A.C. McClurg & Co., Chicago, 1919): Red cloth binding.
Market values:
- First edition, fine/fine: $1,000–$3,000
- Very good/very good: $400–$1,000
- Good: $150–$400