H. G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds

Abstract

The War of the Worlds, H. G. Wells’s most brilliant work, is at the same time one of the few novels which have transcended the fantastic nature of their premises and become a part of world literature.² This double assertion requires justification. Indeed, my opening claim may come as a surprise, since Wells wrote many books, of which this is one of the earliest — the fourth, following The Time Machine (1895), The Invisible Man (1897) and The Island of Dr Moreau (1897).³

H. G. Wells, Wojna Swiatów, with an epilogue by Stanislaw Lem (Krakow: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1974).