characters of John Carter and Carter's wife Dejah Thoris. It was first published in The All-Story as a five-part serial in the issues for January-May 1913. It was later published as a complete novel by A. C. McClurg in September, 1918 and in many editions subsequently. As usual for him, Burroughs begins with a frame story that explains how he (Burroughs) came into possession of the text. At the end of the first book, A Princess of Mars, John Carter was unwillingly transported back to Earth. The story proper begins with his arrival back on Barsoom (Mars) after a ten-year separation with Dejah Thoris, their unborn child, and the Red Martian people of the nation of Helium, whom he has adopted as his own. Unfortunately, Carter materializes in the one place on Barsoom from which nobody is allowed to depart: the Valley Dor, which is the Barsoomian afterlife.