805
I Fought Once Again for Dejah Thoris
FES Title: Color jacket + frontispiece
Alternate Titles: The Princess of Mars (1925, 1931); John Carter Saves the Life of the Princes of Mars
[1934]
Date: 06/26/1917
Size: 34″H x 25″W
Medium: oil_single-prime-canvas
Type: illustration
Published: Burroughs, Edgar Rice. A Princess of Mars. Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co., 1917: frontispiece, dust jacket.
caption: With my back against a golden throne, I fought once again for Dejah Thoris. ( page 298 )

______. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1917: frontispiece, dust jacket.
caption: [same as above]

______. London: Methuen & Co.Ltd., 1919, 1920, 1930, 1936, 1942, 1952: dust jacket.

______. California: Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., 1940: frontispiece.
caption: [same as above]

______. London: Goulden-Allen, 1949: cover.

Burroughs, Edgar Rice. A Princes of Mars and A Fighting Man of Mars. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1964: facing 146.
caption: With my back against a golden throne, I fought once again for Dejah Thoris.

Porges, Irwin. Edgar Rice Burroughs: The Man Who Created Tarzan. Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 1975: 292.
caption: Frontispiece and cover illustration of A Princess of Mars, 1917; Frank Schoonover, illustrator.

Schoonover, Cortlandt. Frank Schoonover, Illustrator of the North American Frontier. New York: Watson-Guptill Publications, 1976: 157.
caption: A Princess of Mars

Cochran, Russ. The Edgar Rice Burroughs Library of Illustration, Vol. 3. West Plains, MO: Russ Cochran, 1984: 97.
caption: Dust jacket same as frontispiece: “With my back against a golden throne, I fought once again for Dejah Thoris.”

Zeuschner, Robert B. Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Exhaustive Scholar’s and Collector’s Descriptive Bibliography of American Periodical, Hardcover, Paperback, and Reprint Editions. Jefferson, NC: MacFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 1996: 120.
caption: First G&D dust jacket for A Princess of Mars [1918]

Burroughs, Edgar Rice. A Princess of Mars.Utah: Quiet Vision Publishing, 2001: cover, frontispiece.
caption: With my back against a golden throne, I fought once again for Dejah Thoris

______. New York: The Modern Library, 2003: frontispiece.
caption: [same as above]

______. Connecticut: The Easton Press, 2004: frontispiece.
caption: [same as above]
Inscription: lr: F.E. Schoonover / ’17
Annotations:
Exhibitions: 1925 Washington; 1931 FES; 1934 Wesleyan
Comments: index; edit; information requested in: Maine Antique Digest June 2005: 31-B.
The page number and caption for first and fourth citation are taken from:
A Golden Anniversary Bibliography of Edgar Rice Burroughs, edited by Henry Hardy Heins. Rhode Island: Donald M. Grant, 1964: 110.
Commentary: Schoonover was commissioned to illustrate the first two Edgar R. Burroughs ‘Mars’ novels, A Princess of Mars, and The Gods of Mars; the dust jacket and four illustrations for the former, and just the dust jacket for the latter, #865.
He put considerable thought and research into artistically portraying Burroughs’s costumes and characters in these two unique science fiction stories. In a descriptive letter to McClure’s Magazine editor Joseph Bray on July 27, 1917, the artist made these observations: “Following the notes made from the manuscript, you will find a few deductions made by the artist and herewith set down for future reference. These notes were written after two or three days’ study and after making dozens of sketches.” The letter includes what he refers to as a “Martian Encyclopedia of Costume, with copious notes on narrative and costuming.”
Years later, he commented on the Martian tales in an instruction manual for the Phoenix Art Insititute: “The story of life on Mars is purely imaginative, but it proceeds with the ring of truth. The figures must be well drawn and articulated properly. There is nothing mystic about this.”
Provenance: Russell Hardy, Newark, Delaware; inherited by Richard Hardy; Collection of Stephen Korshak, Orlando, FL (2012).