Style
The War of the Worlds presents itself as a factual account of the Martian invasion. The narrator is a middle-class scientific journalist somewhat reminiscent of Doctor Kemp in The Invisible Man, with characteristics similar to Wells' at the time of writing. The reader learns very little about the background of the narrator or indeed of anyone else in the novel; characterization is unimportant. In fact, none of the principal characters are named.
Scientific setting
Wells trained as a science teacher during the latter half of the 1880s. One of his teachers was T. H. Huxley, famous as a major advocate of Darwinism. He later taught science, and his first book was a biology textbook. He joined the scientific journal Nature as a reviewer in 1894. Much of his work is notable for making contemporary ideas of science and technology easily understandable to readers.
The scientific fascinations of the novel are established in the opening chapter, where the narrator views Mars through a telescope, and Wells offers the image of the superior Martians having observed human affairs, as though watching tiny organisms through a microscope. Ironically, it is microscopic Earth life-forms that finally prove deadly to the invasion force. In 1894 a French astronomer observed a 'strange light' on Mars, and published his findings in the scientific journal Nature on 2 August of that year. Wells used this observation to open the novel, imagining these lights to be the launching of the Martian cylinders towards Earth. American astronomer Percival Lowell published the book Mars in 1895, suggesting features of the planet’s surface observed through telescopes might be canals. He speculated that these might be irrigation channels constructed by a sentient life form to support existence on an arid, dying world, similar to that Wells suggests the Martians have left behind. The novel also presents ideas related to Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection, both in specific ideas discussed by the narrator, and themes explored by the story.
Wells also wrote an essay titled 'Intelligence on Mars', published in 1896 in the Saturday Review, which sets out many of the ideas for the Martians and their planet that are used almost unchanged in The War of the Worlds. In the essay he speculates about the nature of the Martian inhabitants and how their evolutionary progress might compare to humans. He also suggests that Mars, being an older world than the Earth, might have become frozen and desolate, conditions that might encourage the Martians to find another planet on which to settle.
Physical Location
'The Martian' in Woking.
In 1895, Wells was an established writer and he married his second wife, Catherine Robbins, moving with her to the town of Woking in Surrey. Here he spent his mornings walking or cycling in the surrounding countryside, and his afternoons writing. The original idea for The War of the Worlds came from his brother, during one of these walks, pondering on what it might be like if alien beings were to suddenly descend on the scene and start attacking its inhabitants.
Much of The War of the Worlds takes place around Woking and nearby suburbs. The initial landing site of the Martian invasion force, Horsell Common, was an open area close to Wells' home. In the preface to the Atlantic edition of the novel, he wrote of his pleasure in riding a bicycle around the area, and imagining the destruction of cottages and houses he saw, by the Martian heat-ray or the red weed. While writing the novel, Wells enjoyed shocking his friends by revealing details of the story, and how it was bringing total destruction to parts of the South London landscape that were familiar to them. The characters of the artilleryman, the curate and the medical student were also based on acquaintances in Woking and Surrey.
In the present day, a 7 meter (23 feet) high sculpture of a tripod fighting machine, entitled 'The Martian', based on the description in The War of the Worlds, stands in Crown Passage, close to the local railway station, in Woking, designed and constructed by artist Michael Condron.
Cultural setting
His depiction of suburban late Victorian culture in the novel, was an accurate reflection of his own experiences at the time of writing. In the late 19th Century the British Empire was the predominant colonial and military power on the globe, making its domestic heart a poignant and terrifying starting point for an invasion by aliens with their own imperialist agenda. He also drew upon a common fear which had emerged in the years approaching the turn of the century, known
at the time as Fin de siècle or 'end of the age', which anticipated apocalypse at midnight on the last day of 1899.
Publication
In the late 1890s it was common for novels, prior to full volume publication, to be serialized in magazines or newspapers, with each part of the serialization ending upon a cliff hanger to entice audiences to buy the next edition. This is a practice fami