The War of the WorldsThe chilling novel depicting a Martian invasion of London in the nineteenth century—a science fiction classic for all time. In 1898, H.G. Wells published The War of the Worlds, a work that has made the deepest impression on the public consciousness of any science fiction novel. His chilling account of an invasion of Earth from outer space by intelligent, ruthless aliens was made remarkably effective in its exquisitely detailed account of the invaders’ progress through the city of London, the capital of the world’s most powerful nation at the end of the nineteenth century. Many readers could imagine the familiar neighborhoods and landscapes hideously transformed as a result of the Martian invasion, making the impact of the novel even more powerful and immediate. Wells’s keen awareness of the preciousness of life on Earth and the fragility of our place in the universe makes The War of the Worlds just as forceful and relevant today as it was when it was first published more than 100 years ago. |
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Common terms and phrases
artilleryman began black powder Black Smoke blackened body bridge brother Byfleet Chertsey Chobham Chronic Argonauts common crawled creatures crowd curate cylinder darkness dead destruction door earth Edgware escape eyes face faint fear feet fighting-machine fire flame flash going green grew guns hand handling-machine head heap heard Heat-Ray Hill horse Horsell Horsell Common houses huge human hurrying lane Leatherhead light London Londonward looked machine Mars Martians Maybury Maybury Hill mind morning narrator night northward o’clock Ogilvy Ottershaw planet Primrose Hill Putney Pyrford railway realised red weed Regent’s Park road round ruins running sand pits scarcely science fiction scullery seemed seen Shepperton shouted side silent slowly smashed sound staring station steam stood stopped strange streets struggle suddenly tentacles Thames things thought tians tion trees tumult turned ulla vapour watched Wells’s Weybridge wife window Woking Woking station Worlds yards
Popular passages
Page 7 - We know now that as human beings busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinized and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinize the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water.
Page 3 - But who shall dwell in these vast bodies, earths, worlds, * " if they be inhabited ? rational creatures ? " as Kepler demands, " or have they souls to be saved ? or do they inhabit a better part of the world than we do ? Are we or they lords of the world ? And how are all things made for man...
Page 9 - And we men, the creatures who inhabit this earth, must be to them at least as alien and lowly as are the monkeys and lemurs to us.
Page 8 - 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.