Edgar Rice Burroughs introduced his Mars setting—called Barsoom—by serializing his first John Carter story in All-Story Magazine. The serial ran over multiple issues and established key series elements: a swashbuckling Earth hero, Martian city-states, and a blend of adventure with speculative science.
Burroughs quickly followed with a sequel that deepened Barsoom’s cultures and beliefs. Serialized in All-Story, it broadened the series beyond simple adventure by turning Martian religion and political control into central plot forces.
Serialized across late 1913 and early 1914, this story concluded the main conflict begun in the first two installments. It helped cement the John Carter books as a continuing saga with cliffhangers and payoffs across multiple releases.
This fourth entry moved attention away from John Carter and toward younger characters such as Carthoris (Carter’s son) and Thuvia. The shift showed that Barsoom could continue by expanding its cast and exploring new parts of the Martian world.
After its magazine success, Burroughs’s first Barsoom story was issued in hardcover as A Princess of Mars. The book release helped move the story from pulp serial entertainment into the longer-lived novel market, supporting wider reprints and later adaptations.
The second Barsoom installment was published as a complete novel, making the series easier to read as a connected set. This also reinforced the “series identity” of the books, rather than treating them as standalone magazine adventures.
The third installment was released in book form, allowing the early John Carter arc to be collected and sold to readers who preferred novels over magazines. With three novels available, Barsoom had a solid foundation as a long-running franchise.
Published after a gap, this installment added new locations, creatures, and social systems, keeping the series fresh for 1920s readers. Its serial run and quick book publication also show that Burroughs still had a market for Barsoom adventures.
This novel used a different first-person narrator (Ulysses Paxton) instead of John Carter, signaling a more flexible series structure. It first appeared in Amazing Stories Annual before being released in book form, reflecting Barsoom’s movement across magazines and publishers.
Serialized in The Blue Book Magazine and later published as a novel, this entry again centers on a different narrator (Tan Hadron). The continued rotation of viewpoints helped Burroughs tell stories across Barsoom without always relying on the original hero.
After several books focused on other characters, Burroughs brought John Carter back as the primary narrator and protagonist. The story was serialized in Blue Book and later published by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., reflecting the author’s growing control over how his work was issued.
This novel was first serialized in Argosy Weekly in 1939 and then published in book form in 1940. The focus on “synthetic men” (artificially created beings) shows the series leaning into stronger science-fiction ideas while keeping its action-adventure style.
Four Barsoom stories originally published in Amazing Stories (1941) were later collected as Llana of Gathol in 1948. It is widely treated as the final Barsoom volume published while Burroughs was alive, marking a late-career closing phase for the series.
Edgar Rice Burroughs died in Encino, California, in 1950. His death ended the series’ original author-driven development, leaving later Barsoom publications to rely on previously written material and estate-managed editions.
In 1964, Canaveral Press published John Carter of Mars, bringing together two late John Carter stories: “John Carter and the Giant of Mars” (from Amazing Stories, January 1941) and “Skeleton Men of Jupiter” (from Amazing Stories, February 1943). This volume provided a clear “capstone” publication path for parts of the Barsoom canon that had appeared in magazines and helped define the series’ long-term legacy in book form.
Barsoom series by Edgar Rice Burroughs (1912–1943)