To Mars via The Moon: An Astronomical Story by Mark Wicks is a book from my readings on the human exploration of Mars.. The books are all listed at the page on Red Mars. it is freely available in various formats at Project Gutenberg. See in: Imagining Mars: A Literary History (Early Classics of Science Fiction)
by Robert Crossley.

A Lowellian account with much contemporary science and illustration. I liked the concern about automobiles on the Earth were noisy and smelly compared with those of Mars. Also some detail on the size of Phobos from the surface. Only with Curiosity rover do we get nice pictures of the Martian moons (and our own) from the surface in relative size.

This is part of my collection on the human exploration of the moon. The key entry for the collection is: Full Moon by Michael Light.