Pharaoh's Broker

About This Book

Published in 1899, Pharaoh's Broker is an early science fiction novel by Ellsworth Douglass (pen name of Elmer Dwiggins). A young Chicago grain speculator named Isidor Werner finances a professor's antigravity device and accompanies him on a voyage to Mars. They discover a Martian civilization that mirrors ancient Egypt — the planet is going through the same historical phases as Earth with a delay of several millennia, and its inhabitants speak Hebrew. Werner realizes he has arrived at the equivalent of the Biblical story of Joseph and the Pharaoh, and attempts to profit from foreknowledge of the coming famine.

The novel is notable for its relatively sophisticated treatment of space travel — addressing weightlessness, radiation, air supply, and space sickness — and for its exploration of parallel evolution across planets. Science fiction historian Richard Lupoff has cited Pharaoh's Broker as an influence on Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars series. The novel is in the public domain.

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