When originally published in Argosy All-Story Weekly, The Moon Maid, The Moon Men, and The Red Hawk, were, respectively, over 61,500 words, over 43,500 words, and over 35,500 words in length. When combined for the hardcover book publication, it was decided to shorten the second and third story in the trilogy. The Moon Men was shortened by about 11,500 words, mostly by removing text (some additional text was added), and The Red Hawk lost almost 3,500 words. However, Burroughs was not one to leave a story alone after its initial publication, so all three actually had wordage added in addition to the subtraction of text—a total difference between the magazine texts and the hardcover text of about 18,300 less words. This expanded text version of the trilogy was created by using the complete magazine texts as a starting point, then adding in any new book texts, and finally creating a smooth transition of the two texts.
Because of Burroughs modus operandi in writing and rewriting for most of his works, there can be no definitive version of the text. He initially wrote his stories and they appeared, generally, in magazines. They were usually lightly edited (punctuation and paragraphing being the two most notable changes). After they were published, Burroughs would then do a rewrite of the original, creating a newer version of the story. Usually this meant only minor changes of not more than a thousand words or so, but sometimes several thousands of words in addition and/or change to the original was done. This is why there is no definitive version of his stories. He never wrote a story once, but did one or more rewrites after initial publication, and sometimes prior to publication.