him outright whether (a) the story had actually been written by Edgar Rice Burroughs, and (b) if it had, whether or not Palmer or anyone else had tampered with the manuscript before publication; or (c) if it had not been written by Burroughs, who did write the story.

Simultaneously I wrote to Hulbert Burroughs, the author's son, and asked him to check through his father's files and records, and determine if possible (a) whether his father did write Giant and (b) if he did, whether a copy of the manuscript still existed for purposes of comparison with the magazine version.

Palmer's reply was the first to arrive, and in it he stated that (a) the story had indeed been written by Burroughs and (b) no one had changed it in any way prior to publication. Unfortunately, according to Palmer, the manuscript had been kept in the files of the Ziff-Davis Publishing Company, publisher of AMAZING STORIES, and had been destroyed some years later in a records-clearance move.

An initial reply from Hulbert Burroughs was equally mystifying - a search of the records of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., had produced an entry for the sale of John Carter and the Giant of Mars to Ziff-Davis. But an examination of ERB's notebook, in which the author usually kept painstaking track of starting, completion, and revision dates of all his stories, did not uncover the expected entry for Giant.

More or less reconciled, by now, to permanent mystification regarding the authorship of Giant, I was surprised and gratified to receive a further communication from Hulbert Burroughs, unravelling the mystery at last.

<<BackPagesTo menuNext>>