The War of the Worlds (Paperback)

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 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. (from the first line)

Annotation:
WAR OF THE WORLDS was written in two parts: "The Coming of the Martians", which details the Martians' landing and conquering; and "The Earth Under the Martians", which is a post-apocalyptic account of the Martians' reign and their subsequent vanquishing by microbes which they are unprepared for. Mars, and the possibility of life on it, had apparently intrigued Wells for some time. In an interesting aside, as Bernard Bergonzi notes in his "Early H. G. Wells", the author also had some fun writing scenes in which the aliens destroyed characters modeled on his neighbors. Adapted by Orson Welles and Howard Koch for the notorious 1938 Halloween radio broadcast, this story sent hundreds of frenzied families onto the highways in an attempt to escape the alien threat.||The quirky pen-and-ink illustrations of Edward Gorey, author/artist of many macabre picture books for adults but perhaps best known for the animated credits of the PBS show MYSTERY!, enliven this classic tale of interplanetary warfare.The book was written in two parts: "The Coming of the Martians", which details the Martians' landing and conquering; and "The Earth Under the Martians", which is a post-apocalyptic account of the Martians' reign and their subsequent vanquishing by microbes which they are unprepared for. Mars, and the possibility of life on it, had apparently intrigued Wells for some time. In an interesting aside, as Bernard Bergonzi notes in his "Early H. G. Wells", the author also had some fun writing scenes in which the aliens destroyed characters modeled on his neighbors. Adapted by Orson Welles and Howard Koch for the notorious 1938 Halloween radio broadcast, this story sent hundreds of frenzied families onto the highways in an attempt to escape the alien threat.The book was written in two parts: "The Coming of the Martians", which details the Martians' landing and conquering; and "The Earth Under the Martians", which is a post-apocalyptic account of the Martians' reign and their subsequent vanquishing by microbes which they are unprepared for. Mars, and the possibility of life on it, had apparently intrigued Wells for some time. In an interesting aside, as Bernard Bergonzi notes in his "Early H. G. Wells", the author also had some fun writing scenes in which the aliens destroyed characters modeled on his neighbors. Adapted by Orson Welles and Howard Koch for the notorious 1938 Halloween radio broadcast, this story sent hundreds of frenzied families onto the highways in an attempt to escape the alien threat.