#edgarriceburroughs - Every Day With Edgar Rice Burroughs - July 16, 2025

 July 16, 2025 and ninety-eight years ago on this day in 1927, “Amazing Stories Annual Volume One” containing the complete novel, “The Mastermind of Mars,” was published. The iconic cover art by Frank R. Paul has been copied numerous times for several different editions of the novel. For publication history, numerous illustrations, a complete Ebook edition, and a PDF of Amazing Stories Annual Volume One, visit: www.erbzine.com/mag4/0427.html

In addition to the cover, Paul drew ten black and white interior illustrations for the issue.

The working titles for “The Mastermind of Mars” were "A Weird Adventure on Mars” and "Vad Varo of Barsoom.” Burroughs frequently explored immortality in his novels and he revisited the theme once more in this novel. Herein, immortality, or at least a very long life, could be achieved by the transference of one’s brain into a younger body. Sounds like a good idea unless you happen to be the person living in the younger body.

The 100-word drabble for today, “Everybody Needs A Body," was inspired by the novel, “The Mastermind of Mars,” and by the brain transference process. We can’t do that today, but we can do hearts, kidneys, lungs, livers, and corneas. The time will come. Credit and thanks to Dean Martin, who recorded “Everybody Needs Somebody” and to Irving Taylor and Ken Lane, who wrote it.

Everybody needs a body sometimes

Everybody just grows old somehow

Something in my heartbeat told me

My sometime is now.

If I had freedom of choice

I’d pick a girl’s body with lovely charms,

Then I know that I’d rejoice

Men would lose their minds held in my arms.

Today I want a body, lovely

Blonde, and young, and cute

Beguiling and ever so alluring

When I wear my birthday suit.

So sad for the owner, previous

But I need it much more than she

And yes, my methods are devious

If only one can be happy, I pick me.