Digital Books in the Public Domain

The earliest science fiction novels about Mars are in the public domain and several have been digitized by the Google Books Library Project. While the project is controversial and differs from Project Gutenberg, it has real value.

The twelve titles listed below, most of which are English First Editions, are part of Google's digital project and can be read on the Internet or downloaded as a pdf. This is convenient, as only about half of these titles have been reprinted in the past few decades. Reading a digital science fiction novel from cover-to-cover is less than enjoyable, but it does provide the opportunity to examine a title page, peruse the contents, or admire an old illustration. Thanks Google!

• Skyward and Earthward, by Edward Penrice (1875)

• Across the Zodiac: the Story of a Wrecked Record, by Percy Greg (1880)

• Politics and Life in Mars: a Story of a Neighboring Planet (1883)

• Urania: a Romance, by Camille Flammarion (1891)

• Daybreak: a Romance of an Old World, by James Cowan (1896)

• The Martian: a Novel, by George Du Maurier (1897)

• Pharaoh’s Broker: Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner, by Ellsworth Douglass (1899)

• The Man from Mars: His Morals, Politics, and Religion, by William Simpson (1900)

• Drowsy, by John Ames Mitchell (1917)

• A Princess of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs (1917)

• The Warlord of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs (1919)

• Yezad: a Romance of the Unknown, by George Babcock (1922)