H.G. Wells's spellbinding account of an invasion from outer space is the first and still the best of all such stories. Ten massive, super-intelligent aliens from Mars touch down in Victorian England and threaten to reduce the civilized world to cinder in short order, as humanity's vaunted knowledge proves to be of little use in such an emergency. First published in 1898, famously dramatized by Orson Welles in an extraordinary 1938 radio presentation that had listeners fearing for their lives, and the subject of a forthcoming movie by Steven Spielberg, The War of the Worlds is a fantasy that is both startlingly up-to-date and in touch with the most ancient of human fears. Here this classic work receives its definitive visual interpretation at the hands of master illustrator Edward Gorey, who offers spectacular front and back cover art and several of his inimitably unsettling line drawings. One color illustration and 29 black-and-white illustrations are featured.