Is the mysterious Panthan warrior friend or foe? As hero battles for maiden in a deadly game of living chess, the pieces are fighting men and the stakes are life and death! Burroughs began writing The Chessmen of Mars in January, 1921 and the finished story was first published in Argosy All-Story Weekly as a six-part serial in the issues for February and March of 1922. #5 in Burroughs's Martian Barsoom series.

Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875 - 1950) was an American writer best known for his creations of the jungle hero Tarzan and the heroic Mars adventurer John Carter, although he produced works in many genres. Burroughs was in his late 60s and was in Honolulu at the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Despite his age, he applied for and received permission to become a war correspondent, becoming one of the oldest U.S. war correspondents during World War II. This period of his life is mentioned in William Brinkley's bestselling novel Don't Go Near the Water.