"IT NEVER WAS A WAR, ANY MORE THAN THERE'S WAR BETWEEN MEN AND ANTS": FIRST EDITION OF WELLS' WAR OF THE WORLDS

WELLS, H.G. The War of the Worlds. London: William Heinemann, 1898. Octavo, original gray cloth, uncut. $4200.

First edition of H.G. Wells' classic and influential "scientific romance."

"Almost all of Wells' best science fiction has an evolutionary subtext… The British Empire, like all others before it, represented the successful predation of the weak by the strong, and that was the subject, in a metamorphosed form, of The War of the Worlds" (Disch, 62-63). "The novel is a tour de force whose innumerable fictional offspring include numerous adaptations and homages, by far the most effective of which was Orson Welles' Mercury Theater radio broadcast of 1938" (Anatomy of Wonder II-1234). Without extremely rare dust jacket. With 16-page publisher's catalog at rear dated Autumn 1897, Currey's Form A (Currey, 426). Hammond B5. Weinstein, 31. Cutler & Stiles, 154.

Scattered foxing to edges of text block, slight toning to spine. A handsome, near-fine copy.