THE GODS OF MARS

Edgar Rice Burroughs





FOREWORD




Twelve years had passed since I had laid the body of my great-uncle,
Captain John Carter, of Virginia, away from the sight of men in
that strange mausoleum in the old cemetery at Richmond.

Often had I pondered on the odd instructions he had left me
governing the construction of his mighty tomb, and especially those
parts which directed that he be laid in an OPEN casket and that
the ponderous mechanism which controlled the bolts of the vault's
huge door be accessible ONLY FROM THE INSIDE.

Twelve years had passed since I had read the remarkable manuscript
of this remarkable man; this man who remembered no childhood and
who could not even offer a vague guess as to his age; who was always
young and yet who had dandled my grandfather's great-grandfather
upon his knee; this man who had spent ten years upon the planet
Mars; who had fought for the green men of Barsoom and fought against
them; who had fought for and against the red men and who had won