War of the Worlds, The, is a famous novel by the English author H. G. Wells. It was first published in serial form in 1898 in magazines in the United Kingdom and the United States and issued as a book the same year. The novel describes an invasion of Earth by spaceships from Mars and is generally considered part of a style in British fiction known as “invasion literature.” In most instances, the invaders are German, French, or Russian, but Wells modified the style by making the invaders blood-seeking monsters from Mars with terrifying war machines. The novel has become a science-fiction classic because of its exciting action and its imaginative descriptions of the alien Martians and interplanetary flight.
The War of the Worlds covers a period of 12 days. The Martians land in England, and at first the people react with curiosity. After the Martians attack with fearful weapons, the people begin to defend themselves. The Martians cause much destruction before they die from germs in the air that are harmless to human beings.
The War of the Worlds gained unexpected fame through an American radio broadcast on Oct. 30, 1938. To coincide with Halloween, the young director-actor Orson Welles dramatized the novel for his “Mercury Theatre on the Air” weekly radio program.
Welles relocated the novel’s setting from England to New Jersey. The broadcast took the form of on-the-spot news reports describing the landing of Martian spaceships. The announcer told the radio audience that the show was fictional. Even so, many listeners across the country went into a state of panic, believing Martians were actually invading the East Coast of the United States. The reaction took Welles and his acting company by surprise, but the publicity created by the broadcast boosted Welles’s reputation, which soon led to a filmmaking career in Hollywood.
