Publication of The War of the Worlds

The War of the Worlds is a science fiction novel by the English writer H. G. Wells, first serialised in magazines in 1897 and published as a book the following year. It describes an invasion of southern England by Martians in huge tripod machines, who use heat rays and poison gas and who are finally defeated, not by humans, but by terrestrial bacteria to which they have no immunity. The unnamed narrator tells the story from the Surrey countryside and the streets of London. Wells wrote it partly as a critique of British imperialism, asking readers to imagine being on the receiving end of a more advanced power. A radio adaptation by Orson Welles in 1938 reportedly alarmed some listeners in the United States.

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