Beyond Thirty

More Than 4,000 Words Restored from Burroughs' Original Manuscript

In 1915, as debate raged about the aggressions by the Central Powers in Europe, and whether the United States should allow itself to be drawn into the conflict that would eventually be known as World War I, Edgar Rice Burroughs penned a cautionary allegory about the consequences complete isolationism: the novel Beyond Thirty. In this tale, set in the twenty-second century, the nations of North and South America have entirely cut themselves off from contact with Europe, Africa, and Asia following a terrifying global war, drawing a line at 30 degrees East in the Atlantic and 175 degrees West in the Pacific-a barrier that no soul may cross without suffering the utmost punishment and disgrace. No citizen of the futuristic Pan-American Federation knows the fate of the rest of the world in the intervening two hundred years since it was isolated from the Western Hemisphere. But when an accident causes the aero-submarine Coldwater to inadvertently pass beyond the dreaded thirtieth degree to the European continent, its captain and crew find a post-apocalyptic landscape devoid of all signs of civilization, populated by warlike tribes and ferocious wildlife.

Beyond Thirty was first published in the February 1916 issue of All Around Magazine, and was later retitled The Lost Continent when published in paperback by Ace Books in 1963.

But what has remained unknown until now is that more than 4,000 words, including lengthy passages of text, were excised from Edgar Rice Burroughs' original hand-corrected typescript by the pulp magazine editor-words that have been absent from every edition since the novel's first publication. Now Beyond Thirty: Restored Edition corrects this egregious error with its historic release, including a new foreword by editor Christopher Paul Carey discussing the context in which the novel was written, Burroughs' plans for a film adaptation of the tale, and the significance of restored material.

The year is 2137. Two hundred years ago, a horrendous war raged across the globe, so dreadful the Americas isolated themselves from their enemies in the Old World. They decreed that none should ever again pass beyond thirty degrees East-upon pain of court martial, ignominy, and even death. But when the aero-submarine Coldwater suffers a catastrophic loss of its buoyancy generators and drifts into the forbidden zone, Lieutenant Jefferson Turck finds himself abandoned on the shores of Old Europe. There he discovers Great Britain has been blasted back to the Stone Age, with warring tribes evading the lions that roam wild amid the ruins of battle-ravaged London. But the spirit of the lost continent's glory days survives in Victory, the dethroned Queen of England, and only Jefferson Turck stands in the way of the savage world that conspires against her.

This special Restored Edition compilation of Beyond Thirty and all other new material therein copyright 2026 Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Beyond Thirty, The Lost Continent, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Edgar Rice Burroughs Universe are trademarks or registered trademarks of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. Associated logos, characters, names, and the distinctive likenesses thereof are trademarks or registered trademarks of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.