The War of the WorldsH.G. Wells created The War of the Worlds, his archetypical story of alien invasion, amidst an 1890s backdrop of rampant and rapid industrialization, global British hegemony, and incipient war with Europe-all of which are reflected in his tale of Martian attack. The story remains startlingly relevant today in our era wracked with worldwide concerns over terrorism and national security. This new edition--with an introduction by mass-psychology expert Robert E. Bartholomew and classic illustrations by Alvin-Correa--is sure to enthrall and intrigue yet another generation of readers. |
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artilleryman began Black Smoke blackened body bridge brother Byfleet Chertsey Chobham common crawled creatures crowd curate cylinder dark dead death dogcart door drove earth Edgware escape eyes face faint fear feet fighting-machine fire flame flash George's Hill green grew guns hand handling-machine head heap heard Heat-Ray Hill horse Horsell Horsell Common houses huge human hurried kitchen lane Leatherhead light London Londonward looked machine Mars Martians Maybury Maybury Hill mind morning nearer night noise northward October 31 Ogilvy Ottershaw panic pine woods planet Pyrford Quito railway red weed river road rose ruins running rushed sandpits scarcely scullery seemed seen Shepperton shouted side sight silent slowly smashed sound staring station steam stood stopped strange streets struggle suddenly tentacles terror Thames things thought told tumult turned ulla vapor watching Weybridge wife Wimbledon window Woking Woking station yards
Popular passages
Page 15 - The Martians seem to have calculated their descent with amazing subtlety — their mathematical learning is evidently far in excess of ours — and to have carried out their preparations with a wellnigh perfect unanimity. Had our instruments permitted it, we might have seen the gathering trouble far back in the nineteenth century. Men like Schiaparelli watched the red planet — it is odd, by-the-bye, that for countless centuries Mars has been the star of war — but failed to interpret the fluctuating...
Page 12 - No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water.
Page 13 - Yet across an immense ethereal gulf minds that are to our minds as ours are to the beasts in the jungle, intellects vast, cool, and unsympathetic regarded this earth with envious eyes and slowly and surely drew their plans against us.