Moon Series

The genesis of the tale of THE MOON MAID begins at the end of 1918, and early into 1919. During this year Ed Burroughs was working on TARZAN THE UNTAMED, but took some time off to write a novelette inspired by the recent Bolshevik revolution in Russia.
IN this tale, which he entitled "Under the Red Flag," Burroughs expressed his profound distrust of Russian Communism. Set two hundred years in the future, around 2125, it portrays Ed's guess of what might happen if the Soviet Bolshevik communists actually achieved world domination.

Three years later, he got he idea to change the Soviet Bolsheviks to Kalkars, invaders from the Moon who conquer a peaceful and disarmed earth and set up a totalitarian communistic regime. To make it work, in 1922 Ed wrote a prequel to set the stage, and produced "The Moon Maid" which describes the events leading up to the anti-communist morality tale.

Finally, Burroughs returned to the stories of the Kalkars from the moon and in 1925 he wrote "The Red Hawk," the third part of the trilogy which brings the tale of the Julians to a conclusion. In it the humans have reverted to the life style of the American Indians, and have slowly battled and pushed the Kalkars into the Pacific Ocean through the San Fernando Valley area of southern California. 

 

from the main introduction by Robert B. Zeuschner
to the B.H. Wood Limited Collectors Edition of The Moon Maid (October 2000)

 

These three texts have been published by various houses in one or two volumes. Adding to the confusion, some editions have the original (significantly longer) introduction to Part I from the first publication as a magazine serial, and others have the shorter version from the first book publication, which included all three parts under the title The Moon Maid.

 

from Wikipedia

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1) The Moon Maid (1926)

The first manned spaceship to reach the moon discovered a world hidden from human eyes - a world of flying women, of comical cities, and of semi-human monsters who fought for power across these eerie Lunar plains. These men must battle the conflict between themselves and their alien hosts amidst the high adventure that waited for the rescue of the moon maid. After a century of war, all Earth was at peace at last, and friendly communication had been established with the planet Mars. Interplanetary co-operation made possible what neither world had been able to achieve alone -- ships to bridge the distance between the worlds. But The Barsoom, the first Earth-Mars vessel, was treacherously sabotaged, thrown off course, and obliged to make an emergency landing on the moon. And there, beneath the craters, at the interior of the arid satellite, the crew found a world cut off from the rest of the solar system, inhabited by warring The Moon Maid monsters, and the decaying remnants of an ancient civilization. 

 

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First published by Argosy All-Story Weekly: May 5, 12, 19, 26 and June 2, 1923.

First edition in book form: McClurg: February 6, 1926; magazine serial is shortened in the book version.  J. Allen St. John dust jacket with same illustration in sepia frontispiece 

We followed this first edition with the addition of two extra illustrations of Roy Krenkel and one by Frank Frazetta.

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