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
25
words at B2 or above
A1
A2
B1
B2
C1
C2
C2+
highlighted
at or above your level
AI Summary
Chapter 10 — X. IN THE STORM. Central question How does weather amplify the invasion? Main argument Storm, smoke, and chaos make movement and vision difficult, worsening the confusion already in place. Nature is...
body, and he lay crumpled up close
to the fence, as though he had been flung violently against it.
Overcoming the repugnance natural to one who had never before touched a
dead body, I stooped and turned him over to feel for his heart. He was
quite dead. Apparently his neck had been broken. The lightning flashed
for a third time, and his face leaped upon me. I sprang to my feet. It
was the landlord of the Spotted Dog, whose conveyance I had taken.
I stepped over him gingerly and pushed on up the hill. I made my way by
the police station and the College Arms towards my own house. Nothing
was burning on the hillside, though from the common there still came a
red glare and a rolling tumult of ruddy smoke beating up against the
drenching hail. So far as I could see by the flashes, the houses about
me were mostly uninjured. By the College Arms a dark heap lay in the
road.
Down the road towards Maybury Bridge there were voices and the sound of
feet, but I had not the courage to shout or to go to them. I let myself
in with my latchkey, closed, locked and bolted the door, staggered to
the foot of the staircase, and sat down. My imagination was full of
those striding metallic monsters, and of the dead body smashed against
the fence.
I crouched at the foot of the staircase with my back to the wall,
shivering violently.