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First Edition, First Printing (although previously serialized in magazines in the UK and the US). Hard cover, 8vo., in original grey publisher's cloth, with titles blocked in black to front cover and spine, the publisher's logo vignette to the rear board. viii, 303 [1] + 32 pp. publisher's catalogue at rear. Gift inscription in old ink to half-title dated Jan 8th, 1899. Printed on laid paper, top edge trimmed, other edges untrimmed. CONDITION: Very Good Plus, or better. Very light wear at front joint, some minor crimping head and foot of spine. Spine a bit oxidized (darkened). Minute amount of foxing to endpapers, otherwise only a couple of small spots of soiling noted within. Edges a bit dusty. Generally clean and sound.**One of the landmark works of science-fiction, "The War of the Worlds" depicts an invasion of Victorian London by creatures from Mars, who are fleeing ecological collapse on their own planet. The story is sometimes as "steam-punk" as Jules Verne - they both have for their rocket-ships hollow metallic cylinders shot from a "huge gun, in the vast pit sunk into their planet". But whilst Verne explored the mechanical engineering and Newtonian science behind space travel, Wells shows the effect on society of an intelligent invader, to whom humankind are like ants - bothersome, but conquerable. The descriptions of Martian technology pitted against the steam-and-horse-powered Victorian society still inspires the awe that the first readers of this work must have felt... a disaster movie in novel form, a page-turner, a classic. "The War of the Worlds" was originally serialized in 1897 in "Pearson's Magazine" (UK) and "The Cosmopolitan" (US). The full novel was first published in the UK by Heinemann in 1898.**This work has famously been reproduced on film, and notoriously by Orson Welles in his 1938 radio production, which apparently had some people panicked into believing there was a real invasion occurring. British AUTHOR Herbert George Wells (1866-1946) best known for his early science fiction, often of a engineering, mechanical nature. He studied Biology at Imperial College, London which informed many of his descriptions of alien life forms. **REFS: L.W. Currey, "Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors: A Bibliography of First Printings of Their Fiction" p. 526 identifies this as First Edition, First Printing, with a State "B" 32 page catalogue (begins with a Conrad novel). E.F. Bleiler, "The Checklist of Science-Fiction & Supernatural Fiction:" p. 205.
Ref: SCIFI 9500
$3250.00 $2600.00