Page:The Works of H G Wells Volume 3.pdf/17



volume contains two books, "The Invisible Man" and "The War of the Worlds." "The Invisible Man" was first published in 1897, and "The War of the Worlds" in 1898. There is very little to be said about either work. They tell their own stories.

"The War of the Worlds" was suggested to the writer by his elder brother, Frank, to whom the first edition was dedicated. Mr. Frank Wells is a practical philosopher with a disbelief even profounder than that of the writer in the present ability of our race to meet a great crisis either bravely or intelligently. The Great War, the Mean Peace, the Russian Famine, and the present state of the world's affairs have but confirmed that early persuasion. Our present civilisation, it seems, is quite capable of falling to pieces without any aid from the Martians.

Once or twice in reading this book, written a quarter of a century ago, the reader will be reminded of phases and incidents in the Great War: the use of poison-gas, for instance, or the flight before the Martians. These were intelligent anticipations; the story has not been touched up at all. The scene is laid mainly in Surrey in the country round about Woking, where the writer was living when the book was written. He would take his bicycle of an afternoon and note the houses and cottages and typical inhabitants