A Princess of Mars

John Carter is a Confederate cavalry captain from Virginia who, after the American Civil War, drifts west to prospect for gold in the Arizona hills with his friend James Powell. When Apache raiders kill Powell, Carter flees into a strange cave on a cliff. A pungent vapor inside paralyzes him; he loses consciousness — and wakes naked under two moons on the planet Mars, which its inhabitants call Barsoom. The lower gravity gives him the strength to leap great distances and to fight far harder than any man born there.

He is taken prisoner by the Tharks, a fierce race of twelve-foot green warriors with four arms and tusks. Among them he finds a kind young female named Sola, a fearsome loyal "watch dog" called Woola, and a great chieftain named Tars Tarkas who slowly becomes his friend. Soon the Tharks shoot down an air-ship and capture another prisoner: a beautiful red Martian princess named Dejah Thoris, the granddaughter of the Jeddak of Helium. Carter falls in love with her at once and risks his life again and again to protect her from the cruel customs of the green horde.

After killing a Thark warrior named Zad in single combat, Carter rises in rank among the green men, but the savage Jeddak Tal Hajus orders Dejah Thoris tortured. Carter and Sola flee with the princess. They are recaptured; Sola escapes, Carter is sent to die in the arena at Warhoon. He breaks out, crosses half of Mars on foot and air-ship, and reaches Helium — only to learn that Dejah Thoris is being forced to marry Sab Than, prince of Helium's enemy Zodanga, to save her city from starvation. Carter joins the Zodangan air-navy under a false name to find her.

In a great climactic battle, Carter persuades Tars Tarkas to lead the Tharks against Zodanga. Together they sack the city, kill Sab Than, free Dejah Thoris, and lift the siege of Helium. Carter marries Dejah Thoris. Years later, Mars's atmosphere factory fails. Carter manages to enter and save the dying air-plant, but as he loses consciousness he wakes once more in the Arizona cave, naked beside his own old, mummified body — exiled back to Earth, separated from his wife by forty million miles of empty sky.