"11 - John Carter of Mars" - читать интересную книгу автора (Burroughs Edgar Rice)

adaptations of the Barsoomian tales, including two completely different
children's books and a comic magazine, but has never before been used as the
title of a "real" book.
Regarding the two short novels (or novellas, or novelettes, or even long short
stories, the title is not worth the quibble) that make up JOHN CARTER OF MARS,
each has a fascinating tale of its own, quite aside from the story content
itself.
John Carter and the Giant of Mars (or Giant for short) first appeared in AMAZING
STORIES magazine for January, 1941, and created an immediate furore. Dozens of
readers wrote to the magazine challenging the authenticity of the story, which
was stoutly defended by Raymond A. Palmer, the editor. The complaints were based
mainly on two points.
For one, many of Burroughs' more dedicated and scholarly devotees found points
on which the setting of Giant conflicted with the pseudo-world Burroughs ad
constructed in the rest of the series. Specifically, there is the use of the
three-legged rat in Giant, whereas Burroughs had quite graphically described the
Martian rat, or ulsio, in CHESSMEN OF MARS, as "fierce and unlovely ...
many-legged and hairless."
Similarly, the imaginary geography of Giant has been criticized as placing
cities in regions where other stories indicate only deserts or swamps, and
including, without explanation, imaginary creatures and devices present in no
other Barsoomian tale.
Another objection to Giant is the fact that it is narrated in the third person,
while the Martian series was customarily told in first person. This charge,
however, fails on two books, the fourth and fifth in the series. The fourth
book, THUVIA, MAID OF MARS, is told in standard third-person style. The fifth,
CHESSMEN, opens with an introduction in which Edgar Rice Burroughs recounts, in
first person, the circumstances in which John Carter told him, Burroughs, the
tale contained in the book.
The story CHESSMEN is told in third person, but this argument against Giant is
mitigated by the first person introduction. Not so with THUVIA, which pretty
thoroughly demolishes the "first-person / third-person" case against Giant.
In planning the current book, JOHN CARTER OF MARS, it was my hope to verify or
refute the charges against Giant of Mars once and for all. In order to do this,
I wrote directly to Ray Palmer and asked 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 Ц a search of the
records of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., had produced an entry for the sale of