The War of the Worlds

The War of the Worlds, science fiction novel by H.G. Wells, first published serially by Pearson’s Magazine in the U.K. and by The Cosmopolitan magazine in the U.S. in 1897. The novel details a catastrophic conflict between humans and extraterrestrial “Martians.” It is considered a landmark work of science fiction, and it has inspired numerous adaptations and imitations.

Plot summary

The War of the Worlds chronicles the events of a Martian invasion as experienced by an unidentified male narrator and his brother. The story begins a few years before the invasion. During the astronomical opposition of 1894, when Mars is closer to Earth than usual, several observatories spot flashes of light on the surface of Mars. The narrator witnesses one of these flashes through a telescope at an observatory in Ottershaw, Surrey, England. He immediately alerts his companion, Ogilvy, “the well-known astronomer.” Ogilvy quickly dismisses the idea that the flashes are an indication of life on Mars. He assures the narrator that “[t]he chances against anything manlike on Mars are a million to one.” The flashes continue unexplained for several nights.

Early one morning, a “falling star” appears over England. It crashes on Horsell Common, a large expanse of public land near the narrator’s home in Maybury. When the narrator visits the crash site, he finds a crowd of about 20 people gathered around a large cylindrical object embedded in a sand pit. The object is made of metal, and it appears to be hollow. The narrator immediately suspects that the object came from Mars. After observing it for some time, the narrator returns to his home in Maybury. By the time he next visits the crash site, news of the landing has spread, and the number of spectators has increased significantly. The narrator’s second visit is far more eventful than his first: the cylinder opens, and he gets his first glimpse of the Martians:

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A big grayish, rounded bulk, the size, perhaps, of a bear, was rising slowly and painfully out of the cylinder. As it bulged up and caught the light it glistened like wet leather…. The whole creature heaved and pulsated convulsively. A lank tentacular appendage gripped the edge of the cylinder; another swayed in the air.

After a second Martian makes its way out of the cylinder, the narrator runs away in terror. While he hides in the woods, a small group of men (including Ogilvy) approach the cylinder with a white flag. As they near the Martians, there is a great flash of light, and the men carrying the flag are instantly incinerated. Several more flashes follow, causing the spectators to scatter. The narrator escapes back to his house, where he tells his wife what he has seen.

Shortly thereafter, military forces arrive on Horsell Common, and a second cylinder lands near the first. Fighting soon breaks out between the soldiers and the Martians. The following evening, after it becomes apparent that the soldiers are no match for the Martians and their “Heat Rays,” the narrator resolves to take his wife east to Leatherhead, where he believes they will be safe. Using a horse-drawn cart rented from an oblivious innkeeper, the narrator successfully transports his wife (and a few of his belongings) to Leatherhead. Late that night, he leaves to return the cart. As he approaches Maybury, he encounters a terrifying sight—a “monstrous tripod, higher than many houses, striding over the young pine-trees, and smashing them aside in its career.” Stupefied by the sight of the Martian “fighting-machine,” the narrator crashes the cart, thereby breaking the horse’s neck. The narrator just barely escapes detection by the Martians. Against all odds, he manages to make it back to his house. While sheltering there, he encounters a fleeing artilleryman. Cut off from his wife by a cylinder between Maybury and Leatherhead, the narrator decides to travel with the artilleryman. However, they are quickly separated. After a terrifying encounter with the Martians on the River Thames, the narrator finds an abandoned boat, which he uses to paddle toward London. Overcome by “fever and faintness,” he stops at Walton, where he meets the curate who will become his companion for the next few weeks.

At this point, the narrative changes focus, and the narrator begins to tell the story of the invasion as it was experienced by his younger brother, a medical student (also unnamed) in London. According to the narrator, news of the Martian invasion was slow to spread in London. Two days after the initial attack, most Londoners were either unaware of or unconcerned about the danger presented by the Martians. Only after the Martians march upon London do the inhabitants begin to panic. The Martians release a poisonous “Black Smoke” over the city, forcing civilians to evacuate en masse. While attempting to flee to Essex, the narrator’s brother catches a group of men in the act of robbing two women. The brother bravely intervenes and saves the women. They allow him to join them in their carriage, and the three of them set out for the southeastern coast of England. After a series of unfortunate events (their pony is taken away as food by the Committee of Public Supply), the party reaches the coast, where they combine their money and buy passage to Ostend, Belgium, on a steamer. As the steamer pulls away from the shore, the brother watches a spectacular fight between a warship—the torpedo ram HMS Thunder Child—and three Martian fighting-machines.

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Meanwhile, the narrator and the curate plunder houses in search of food. At Sheen, they find a well-stocked house and decide to stop for a quick rest. They are almost immediately disturbed by “a blinding glare of vivid green light.” Suddenly, a cylinder strikes the ground outside, and the narrator is knocked unconscious. When he comes to, the curate tells him not to move, because the Martians are outside. The narrator and the curate decide to stay in the ruins of the house. After about a week of watching the Martians and rationing what little food they have left, their relationship begins to deteriorate. The curate eventually becomes hysterical, and the narrator is forced to knock him unconscious. The scuffle is overheard by a Martian, who—much to the narrator’s horror—stretches a tentacle into the ruins. The tentacle drags the curate’s unconscious body out of the house and nearly grabs the narrator too.

The narrator hides alone in the ruins for six days. When he finally emerges from the house, he discovers that the Martians have abandoned the cylinder. After observing the wreckage around the house, the stunned narrator begins walking toward London. On the way, he once again encounters the artilleryman, who fills him in on the events of the past two weeks. According to the artilleryman, the Martians have destroyed London and set up a camp at the north end of the city. He claims it is “all over.” Humankind is simply “beat.” The artilleryman eagerly tells the narrator about his plan to live beneath London and build a community of like-minded survivors in the sewers. The narrator considers joining the artilleryman, but he ultimately decides against it. He leaves, continuing on his journey toward London.

The path to London is marked by mass destruction. As he walks, the narrator sees piles upon piles of bodies. In the distance, he hears a Martian chanting “ulla” and follows the sound of its voice. Ready to end it all, the narrator approaches a fighting-machine—only to discover that the Martian inside is already dead. As it turns out, all of the Martians are dead, “slain by the putrefactive and disease bacteria against which their systems were unprepared.” The narrator is overwhelmed, and he suffers a three-day nervous breakdown. After a kind family nurses him back to health, he makes his way back to Maybury. At his home, he discovers that his wife has also survived. In the epilogue, the narrator considers the significance of the Martian invasion and warns future generations to prepare themselves.

Analysis and interpretation

Questions of order and hierarchy are at the center of The War of the Worlds. When the Martians first land in England, they are not perceived as a threat. Most men and women—in the suburbs of London and the city—continue to go about their business. Even after the Martians kill several people, daily life is not significantly disrupted. Faced with an impending attack, the English people cling to established regimens and existing social structures. The narrator is particularly struck by this:

The most extraordinary thing to my mind, of all the strange and wonderful things that happened upon that Friday, was the dovetailing of the commonplace habits of our social order with the first beginnings of the series of events that was to topple that social order headlong.

As the narrator observes, the English resistance does not last. The Martian attack eventually forces the collapse of the social order. In effect, it levels all social hierarchies, putting people of all stations and classes on the same plane. Chaos ensues. People quickly turn on one another, using the loss of order as an excuse to be destructive and violent. The narrator and his brother observe a number of strange scenes: people plundering stores, men attacking women, servants abandoning their masters, trains ploughing through crowds, and so on. Wells’s depiction of chaos in the absence of artificial social structures powerfully demonstrates how important those structures are to the human sense of order. More importantly, it underscores the precariousness of the human sense of order.

The Martian invasion causes the collapse of natural hierarchies too. In Wells’s novel, humans become a subordinate species. This change in position gives the narrator a new perspective on the natural world. He begins to draw parallels between the Martian relationship with humans and the human relationship with animals. For the first time in his life, he wonders “how an ironclad or a steam engine would seem to an intelligent lower animal.” He makes a similar analogy after emerging from the ruins of the house that sheltered him:

I felt as a rabbit might feel returning to his burrow and suddenly confronted by the work of a dozen busy navvies digging the foundations of a house. I felt the first inkling of a thing that presently grew quite clear in my mind, that oppressed me for many days, a sense of dethronement, a persuasion that I was no longer a master, but an animal among the animals, under the Martian heel.

The number of human-animal comparisons increases as the novel progresses. Near the end, the narrator encounters an artilleryman who is certain that the Martians will domesticate humans. He predicts that people who are not “made for wild beasts” will end up in “nice roomy cages,” subject to “careful breeding” and “fattening food.” This is not the final outcome, but Wells does not deny that it could be. Instead, he cautions people against taking their position in the natural order for granted. He asks his readers to reconsider their relationship with the animal world. In the end, the major takeaway—for the narrator and the reader—is compassion for animals:

Surely, if we have learned nothing else, this war has taught us pity—pity for those witless souls that suffer our dominion.

Publication and reception

The War of the Worlds was first published serially. Wells sold the rights for The War of the Worlds in 1896. Between April and December 1897, the story was serialized simultaneously by Pearson’s Magazine in the U.K. and The Cosmopolitan in the U.S. Both versions featured illustrations by British children’s book illustrator Warwick Goble.

Wells’s story subsequently appeared in serial form in several American newspapers, including William Randolph Hearst’s The New York Evening Journal and the Boston Post. Notably, the versions that appeared in The New York Evening Journal and the Boston Post were set in America rather than England. Wells did not authorize these reproductions. He protested the change in setting as a “manipulation” of his work.

The War of the Worlds did not appear in book form until 1898, when it was published in the U.K. by William Heinemann. Heinemann reportedly ordered an initial print run of 10,000 copies. He advertised the novel as another work by the “Author of ‘The Time Machine.’”

The initial critical reception for the novel was favorable. Nineteenth-century critics and readers alike marveled at the grandeur of Wells’s vision, and the novel was a tremendous commercial success. Within five years of its publication, it had been translated into 10 languages. Ten years after its publication, Wells recorded that The War of the Worlds had sold some 6,000 copies at its original price of six shillings (and many more copies at cheaper prices). Sales of the novel continued to increase throughout the 20th century, and it is now widely taught in schools. Wells’s novel has been in continuous print since its first publication as a novel in 1898.

Adaptations

Orson Welles’s radio play remains the most famous adaptation of Wells’s novel. On October 30, 1938, Welles presented an adaptation of The War of the Worlds on his radio program, The Mercury Theatre on the Air. As Welles later told reporters, he wrote (and performed) the radio play to sound like a real news broadcast about an invasion from Mars. Some listeners who missed the introduction to Welles’s performance mistook the broadcast as actual news coverage of a Martian invasion. The resulting reaction was greatly exaggerated by the press. Headlines across the U.S. reported that “Attack from Mars in Radio Play Puts Thousands in Fear,” “Radio Listeners in Panic, Taking War Drama As Fact,” and “Radio Fake Scares Nation.” On October 31, The New York Times reported that thousands of people “called the police, newspapers, and radio stations here and in other cities of the United States and Canada seeking advice on protective measures against the raids.” In all, the broadcast is estimated to have fooled about 20 percent, or less than a million, of its listeners.

A number of filmmakers have attempted to tackle The War of the Worlds. In 1953 Byron Haskin directed an Academy Award-winning adaptation of the novel starring Gene Barry and Ann Robinson. Haskin’s adaptation influenced many future science fiction films, including Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds (2005), which starred Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning and featured narration by Morgan Freeman.