A mixed roll, these, and yet all have in common the characteristic of a literary quality which endures beyond their times, and makes their works part of the enduring body of the literature of the English language which stands a solid chance of living for centuries to come. The presence here of Burroughs' A PRINCESS OF MARS is perhaps the first important sign that this author, whose works have enjoyed public acclaim from the first, is beginning to receive the acceptance of educators and serious critics as well.

Having raised Carter, in three books, from a naked and unarmed stranger to the Warlord of the red planet, Burroughs faced the question, What do you do for an encore? Faced with the same question in his Tarzan series, Burroughs carried the Ape Man off into a seemingly interminable series of exotic settings, lost cities and forgotten empires dotting the African landscape so that they must ultimately have crowded one another into the sea!

In the Martian series, ERB tried another approach, I think a more daring one, and a completely successful one. Transferring his attention from John Carter and Dejah Thoris, Burroughs called the fourth book of the series TRUVIA, MAID OF MARS. The title figure had been introduced in THE GODS OF MARS as an equivocal character. She was the plaything of the degenerate group of cultist priests, involuntarily so, in fact the term "white slave" might be applied except that for Thuvia, it would have to be "red slave."

Rescued by John Carter from her unhappy life, Thuvia at the end of the book is imprisoned with Dejah Thoris and a third

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