"IT NEVER WAS A WAR, ANY MORE THAN THERE'S WAR BETWEEN MEN AND ANTS": SCARCE 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; housed in a custom clamshell box. $7500.

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). First issue, "with no statement of printing on copyright page"; this copy bound without publisher's catalogue at rear—copies "occur both with and without an inserted publisher's catalogue" (Currey). Without extremely rare dust jacket. Currey, 426. Hammond B5.

Interior clean, text block expertly reinforced; cloth fairly tight, with toning to spine. An excellent copy in near-fine condition.