At The Earth's Core

April 4-25, 1914

I loved reading Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne, and yet I found it rather static. It was more a geological treatise disguised as an adventure novel. I wanted cavemen fighting dinosaurs.

Imagine my absolute thrill when I found out that the creator of Tarzan and John Carter had imagined a hollow world exactly how I wanted it to be: cavemen, scantily clad savage girls, dinosaurs and plucky surface explorers. Yep, At the Earth's Core had everything for it, and what's more was the first in a whole series of novels taking place inside our planet.

Prospector David Innes uses the mole-bore engine created by his friend Abner Perry, and the trial run takes them to Pellucidar, the Inner Continent. They are soon captured by ape-men serving the dominant species of Pellucidar: the Mahars, sentient pterodactyls who rule the land with an iron hand. Humans are quite low on the totem pole. David falls in love with Dian the Beautiful, daughter of a local chieftain. He inadvertently insults her, so she runs off with Hooja, the Sly One, a rival.

This is it, folks: Perpetual sunlight. Bizarre geography (the horyzone actually stretches out above you). Dinosaurs and pleistocene fauna. The Mahars (psychic pterodactyls). Dian the Beautiful. The Sagoths (ape-men, servants of the Mahars). Every other 'inner world' stories you might have read was most likely inspired by this one.

At the Earth's Core first saw light as a serial in April 1914. Later published as a complete novel by A.C. McClurg.

July 1922