Synthetic Men of Mars

315 pages with frontispiece and Illustrations by John Coleman Burroughs. Small octavo (7 3/4" x 5"), bound in original publisher's blue cloth lettered in orange, color pictorial jacket. Clipped signature of Edgar Rice Burroughs laid down on the front free endpaper. (Heins M9.1; Zeuschner 511; Reginald 02325) First Edition. Synthetic Men of Mars is a science fantasy novel by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, the ninth of his Barsoom series. It was first published in the magazine Argosy Weekly in six parts in early 1939. The first complete edition of the novel was published in 1940 by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. Despite a successful career stretching back more than two decades, Burroughs had trouble finding a publisher for the serialized version of the novel. Both Liberty and Blue Book turned him down; Argosy was his third choice. He received US$1200 for the magazine rights. Like several previous novels in the Barsoom series, Synthetic Men introduces a completely new character as its protagonist: Vor Daj, a padwar (warrior) from Helium and a member of John Carter's personal guard. Vor Daj narrates the action in the first person, so that when John Carter appears in the story, he is described in the third person (unlike other Barsoomian novels that feature Carter as the first-person narrator). The novel also brings back a familiar character, Ras Thavas, the amoral mad scientist from the earlier novel The Master Mind of Mars. Condition: Clipped signature of Edgar Rice Burroughs laid down on the front free endpaper. Slight chipping at jacket corners, minor spots to boards at spine; minor toning to endpapers; very good to fine in like jacket.…