The War of the Worlds (1898) is a science fiction novel by H. G. Wells. It describes the experiences of an unnamed narrator who travels through the suburbs of London as the Earth is invaded by Martians. It is the earliest story that details a conflict between mankind and an alien race. The War of the Worlds is split into two parts, Book one: The Coming of the Martians, and Book two: The Earth under the Martians. The novel is narrated by a writer of philosophical articles who throughout the narrative struggles to reunite with his wife, while witnessing the Martians. | The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells 1898 But who shall dwell in these worlds if they be inhabited . . . Are we or they Lords of the World . . . And how are all things made for man -- KEPLER quoted in The Anatomy of Melancholy Prepared and Published by Ebd BOOK ONE THE COMING OF THE MARTIANS CHAPTER ONE THE EVE OF THE WAR 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. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the gulf of space minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic regarded this earth with envious eyes and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. And early in the twentieth century came the great disillusionment. The planet Mars I scarcely need remind the reader revolves about the sun at a mean distance of 140 000 000 miles and the light and heat it receives from the sun is barely half of that received by this world. It must be if the nebular hypothesis has any truth older than our world and long before this earth ceased to be molten life
