Project Gutenberg #36
The War of the Worlds
H. G. Wells
1898Wells's alien-invasion classic, prepared chapter by chapter from Project Gutenberg plaintext.
Project Gutenberg #36 Public domain in the United States Cover source Local typographic cover created for MojiMori from public-domain source metadata
38
words at B2 or above
A1
A2
B1
B2
C1
C2
C2+
highlighted
at or above your level
Keyboard: focus a highlighted word and press ↓ for its actions. Esc closes; Enter opens the word page.
AI Summary
Chapter 1 — I. THE EVE OF THE WAR. Central question How does Wells establish human complacency before the invasion? Main argument The narrator warns that people in the late nineteenth century cannot imagine being...
petty concerns as they did. I remember how
jubilant Markham was at securing a new photograph of the planet for the
illustrated paper he edited in those days. People in these latter times
scarcely realise the abundance and enterprise of our nineteenth-century
papers. For my own part, I was much occupied in learning to ride the
bicycle, and busy upon a series of papers discussing the probable
developments of moral ideas as civilisation progressed.
One night (the first missile then could scarcely have been 10,000,000
miles away) I went for a walk with my wife. It was starlight and I
explained the Signs of the Zodiac to her, and pointed out Mars, a
bright dot of light creeping zenithward, towards which so many
telescopes were pointed. It was a warm night. Coming home, a party of
excursionists from Chertsey or Isleworth passed us singing and playing
music. There were lights in the upper windows of the houses as the
people went to bed. From the railway station in the distance came the
sound of shunting trains, ringing and rumbling, softened almost into
melody by the distance. My wife pointed out to me the brightness of the
red, green, and yellow signal lights hanging in a framework against the
sky. It seemed so safe and tranquil.