Installment 6 of 9 (September 1897)
This installment comprises the text that is roughly comparable to Book I ("The Coming of the Martians"), part of Chapter XV through the beginning of XVII of the 1898 collected edition and subsequent versions.
This is the cover of the September 1897 issue of Pearson's Magazine:
touching and examining
GANGNES: The tactile nature of the Martians' hunt for the narrator is a scene of intense tension in adaptations and illustrations of the novel. Byron Haskin’s 1953 film increases the danger posed by the machine's searching tentacle by adding a mechanical "eye" to its end, so that the characters must stay out of sight as well as sitting still.
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Later I was to learn that this was the case. That with incredible rapidity these bodiless brains, these limbless intelligences, had built up these monstrous structures since their arrival, and, no longer sluggish and inert, were now able to go to and fro, destroying and irresistible.
GANGNES: This section is replaced in the 1898 edition with the following passage after "...rules in his body?":
"I began to compare the things to human machines, to ask myself for the first time in my life how an ironclad or a steam engine would seem to an intelligent lower animal."
This revision is particularly interesting because Wells removed language referring to steam engines and other human technologies in the narrator's description of the fighting machines in the previous chapter (beginning "And this Thing!").
In this site's page on "The Terrible Trades of Sheffield," a connection is drawn between these edits and Wells's opinion of Warwick Goble's illustrations, which were too close to human technologies. In the revision, then, Wells reframes human technologies as part of an analogy; Martian technology is beyond human technology to so extreme a degree as to be incomprehensible to humans.
the mounted policeman came galloping through the confusion with his hands clasped over his head and screaming
GANGNES: This is the policeman who is depicted running from the Heat Ray in both of Cosmo Rowe's illustrations (the Installment 1 header image and the Installment 2 frontispiece).
Warwick Goble (1862-1948)
GANGNES: Warwick Goble (1862-1943) was a Victorian and early-twentieth-century periodical and book illustrator. His watercolor book illustrations have strong Japanese and Chinese influences and themes. Simon Houfe refers to Goble as a "brilliant watercolour painter of the 1900s and 1920s" and writes that Goble's "filmy translucent watercolours, with their subtle tints and Japanese compositions ... are unique in British illustration, but are not noticed by the collectors of [Arthur] Rackham and [Edmund] Dulac" (210).
In his dictionary entry, Houfe only acknowledges Goble's early relationship with periodicals in his role as a staff illustrator for the Pall Mall Gazette and the Westminster Gazette; Pearson's Magazine is not mentioned, despite the fact that Goble illustrated not only The War of the Worlds, but also Arthur Conan Doyle's Tales of the High Seas (short series) and other pieces in 1897. He provided illustrations for volumes of two other major pieces of late-Victorian serialized fiction: Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island and Kidnapped.
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Installment 9 of 9 (December 1897)
This installment comprises the text that is roughly comparable to Book II, Chapter VIII ("Dead London") through Chapter X ("The Epilogue") of the 1898 collected edition and subsequent versions. "The Man on Putney Hill"--Book II, Chapter VII of the volume--did not appear in the Pearson's version.
This is the cover of the December 1897 issue of Pearson's Magazine: the 1897 Double Christmas Number:
The windows in the white houses were like the eye-sockets of skulls.
GANGNES: In his illustrations for the 1906 limited-edition Belgian volume, Henrique Alvim Corrêa sometimes takes a fantastical/magic-realist approach to his depictions, literalizing metaphors and making the mundane strange. In this case, Corrêa literally draws the narrator's conception of London's buildings resembling skulls:
its cactus-like branches
GANGNES: Illustrations of the Red Weed vary significantly across illustrations and adaptations of The War of the Worlds. In many cases, the weed resembles a creeping vine or red kelp. Only one of the novel's major illustrators, Johan Briedé, took the "cactus-like" quality of the plants to heart. Briedé's illustrations were published in The Strand Magazine in 1920 with an introduction from Wells himself.
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Installment 8 of 9 (November 1897)
This installment comprises the text that is roughly comparable to Book II, Chapter II ("What We Saw from the Ruined House") through Chapter VI ("The Work of Fifteen Days") of the 1898 collected edition and subsequent versions.
This is the cover of the November 1897 issue of Pearson's Magazine:
a stream of water.
GANGNES: A new paragraph is added here for the 1898 volume. See text comparison page. This paragraph constitutes one of the most significant revisions to the novel in terms of the text's relationship with Pearson's and illustration. The new paragraph covertly criticizes Warwick Goble's illustrations of the novel:
"I recall particularly the illustration of one of the first pamphlets to give a consecutive account of the war. The artist had evidently made a hasty study of one of the Fighting Machines, and there his knowledge ended. He presented them as tilted, stiff tripods, without either flexibility or subtlety, and with an altogether misleading monotony of effect. The pamphlet containing these renderings had a considerable vogue, and I mention them here simply to warn the reader against the impression they may have created. They were no more like the Martians I saw in action than a Dutch doll is like a human being. To my mind, the pamphlet would have been much better without them."
Wells's friend English writer Arnold Bennett noticed the new passage and wrote to Wells: “I gathered … that you were not exactly enchanted with Warwick Goble’s efforts.” Wells admitted the intentional critique: Goble “made people think my tale was a wearisome repetition of kettles on camera stands. I really don’t think he put a fair quantity of brain into that enterprise or I wouldn’t have slanged him in the book.”
References:
Handling Machine
From STOVER 199: "The 'Handling Machines' are robots, which here make them their first appearance in science fiction."
GANGNES: Illustrations of the Martians' technology have strongly favored the iconic tripod fighting machines, with almost no depictions of the handling machines. A notable exception is the below image by Brazilian artist Henrique Alvim Corrêa, who created it as part of a series of illustrations for a limited-edition Belgian volume (1906):
Installment 7 of 9 (October 1897)
This installment comprises the text that is roughly comparable to Book I ("The Coming of the Martians"), part of Chapter XVII and Chapter I of Book II ("London Under the Martians") of the 1898 collected edition and subsequent versions.
This is the cover of the October 1897 issue of Pearson's Magazine:
THUNDER CHILD
GANGNES: The battle of the Thunder Child is one of the most action-packed scenes in the novel. It has been a favored scene for many adaptations and illustrations, including the album cover for Jeff Wayne's musical adaptation (see Installment 1 annotations):
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Installment 5 of 9 (August 1897)
This installment comprises the text that is roughly comparable to Book I ("The Coming of the Martians"), Chapter XIV and part of XV of the 1898 collected edition and subsequent versions.
This is the cover of the August 1897 issue of Pearson's Magazine:
poisonous vapour
From DANAHAY 107: "Wells's vision of the use of poison gas, which was used as a weapon for the first time in World War I."
GANGNES: Some illustrations of The War of the Worlds created during and soon after the First World War distinguish themselves by focusing on the black smoke instead of the heat ray. One such illustration is the book cover for a Danish edition published in 1941. Considered in the light of weapons used during the First and Second World Wars, images such as this one become particularly haunting.
Installment 4 of 9 (July 1897)
This installment comprises the text that is roughly comparable to Book I ("The Coming of the Martians"), Chapters XII-XIII of the 1898 collected edition and subsequent versions.
This is the cover of the July 1897 issue of Pearson's Magazine:
Installment 3 of 9 (June 1897)
This installment comprises the text that is roughly comparable to Book I ("The Coming of the Martians"), Chapters IX-XI of the 1898 collected edition and subsequent versions.
This is the cover of the June 1897 issue of Pearson's Magazine:
And this Thing! How can I describe it?
GANGNES: This passage through the next page is the most striking and detailed description of the Martian fighting machines in the novel. Despite the degree of detail offered by the narrator, the machines' physical appearance has been depicted quite differently across various illustrations. Wells made his dislike of Goble's illustrations clear in a passage he added to what would become Book II, Chapter II of the 1898 volume. See Installment 8. He also cut and changed some phrasing to deemphasize comparisons to human technologies. See text comparison page.
imagine it a great thing of metal, like the body of a colossal steam engine on a tripod stand
GANGNES: The 1898 volume changes this to simply "imagine it a great body of machinery on a tripod stand." This seems likely to be part of Wells's negative response to Warwick Goble's depictions of the Martian fighting machines, which resembled known human technology more than Wells would have liked. See text comparison page, note on "The Terrible Trades of Sheffield" below, and the additional passage in what would eventually become Book II, Chapter 2 in the 1898 volume.
Installment 2 of 9 (May 1897)
This installment comprises the text that is roughly comparable to Book I ("The Coming of the Martians"), Chapters V-VIII of the 1898 collected edition and subsequent versions.
This is the cover of the May 1897 issue of Pearson's Magazine:
the ghost of a beam of light
GANGNES: The differences between Cosmo Rowe's illustrations and Warwick Goble's exemplify the difficulties presented for illustrators by invisibility or near-invisibility. Different illustrators have chosen to depict the heat ray in different ways that make clear the cause-and-effect relationship of the ray being pointed and its targets being lit on fire. Usually this requires a visual representation, even though the ray is described as invisible.
Installment 1 of 9 (April 1897)
This installment comprises the text that is roughly comparable to Book I ("The Coming of the Martians"), Chapters I-IV of the 1898 collected edition and subsequent versions.
This is the cover of the April 1897 issue of Pearson's Magazine:
Cosmo Rowe (1877-1952)
From HUGHES AND GEDULD 217: In 1896 H. G. Wells and his agent attempted to get illustrations for The War of the Worlds from Cosmo Rowe, but only succeeded in securing two, both of which appeared in Pearson's and one in Cosmopolitan.
GANGNES: Cosmo Rowe (William John Monkhouse Rowe, 1877-1952) was a British illustrator active during the late Victorian period and thereafter. He was a friend of Wells's and of designer William Morris (1834-1896).
Rowe's illustrations for The War of the Worlds appear in the April 1897 (installment 1, first page) and May 1897 (frontispiece) issues of Pearson's Magazine; they are the only illustrations for the Pearson's War of the Worlds that were not done by Warwick Goble.
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A big greyish rounded bulk, the size perhaps of a bear, was rising slowly and painfully out of the cylinder.
GANGNES: Visual depictions of Wells's Martians, like those of their fighting-machines, have varied widely. Part of this is due to the fact that, even though they are described at length, the narrator still has difficulty wrapping his head around how to relate their appearance to terrestrial creatures. Most depictions resemble something squidlike, but Spielberg's 2005 film) extrapolates from the tripod machines and gives the Martians three appendages.
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