At the Earth's Core

By Edgar Rice Burroughs

At the Earth's Core is a fantasy novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the first in his series about the fictional "hollow earth" land of Pellucidar. It first appeared as a four-part serial in All-Story Weekly from April 4–25, 1914. 

The author relates how, traveling in the Sahara desert, he has encountered a remarkable vehicle and its pilot, David Innes, a man with a remarkable story to tell.

David Innes is a mining heir who finances the experimental "iron mole," an excavating vehicle designed by his elderly inventor friend Abner Perry. In a test run, they discover the vehicle cannot be turned, and it burrows 500 miles into the Earth's crust, emerging into the unknown interior world of Pellucidar. In Burroughs' concept, the Earth is a hollow shell with Pellucidar as the internal surface of that shell.

Pellucidar is inhabited by prehistoric creatures of all geological eras, and dominated by the Mahars, a species of flying reptile both intelligent and civilized, but which enslaves and preys on the local stone-age humans. Innes and Perry are captured by the Mahars' ape-like Sagoth servants and taken with other human captives to the chief Mahar city of Phutra. Among their fellow captives are the brave Ghak, the Hairy One, from the country of Sari, the shifty Hooja the Sly One and the lovely Dian the Beautiful of Amoz.

David Innes, attracted to Dian the Beautiful, defends her against the unwanted attentions of Hooja the Sly One, but due to his ignorance of local customs she assumes he wants her as a slave, not a friend or lover, and subsequently snubs him. Only later, after Hooja slips their captors in a dark tunnel and forces Dian to leave with him, does David learn from Ghak the cause of the misunderstanding.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sheba Blake Publishing
• Release date: Nov 30, 2019
• ISBN: 9781387299362

Edgar Rice Burroughs

Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950) had various jobs before getting his first fiction published at the age of 37. He established himself with wildly imaginative, swashbuckling romances about Tarzan of the Apes, John Carter of Mars and other heroes, all at large in exotic environments of perpetual adventure. Tarzan was particularly successful, appearing in silent film as early as 1918 and making the author famous. Burroughs wrote science fiction, westerns and historical adventure, all charged with his propulsive prose and often startling inventiveness. Although he claimed he sought only to provide entertainment, his work has been credited as inspirational by many authors and scientists.