H. G. Wells Books

It has been very benefical for my son to have had The War of the Worlds from Great Illustrated Classics. The format of the book is excellent. He has enjoyed reading this book and selected it this title for his project when he is done reading it. I'm glad that is was available for him.

I had never heard the full radio broadcast untill purchasing this CD, but it is VERY easy to see how this could have scared the Bee-jeebers out of America on Halloween, 1938. Get this CD and listen to it every Halloween (as I now plan to) and you'll see how interseting old time radio was. Especially when you consider the horror that was just beginning to build in Germany at the same time as the broadcast.

This is one of the best ways of learning SAT vocab, or simply vocab for your own personal gain. Read the classic work on the right, SAT words are in bold and defined on the left. The real kicker is that words are repeated throughout the book. After seeing words over and over you learn them extremely well. Great Concept, Great Study Aid, Great Book!

These Books are better than other SAT Score raising books. Most of these books are written for the sole purpose of raising your score. Their stories tend to be boring, the writing style is usually adequate. Instead Kaplan, defines SAT words inside great literary works. They are perfect for any student. You can now read a classic book, and Study for the SAT at the same time!

Works of Herbert George Wells. Huge collection. (80+ Works) FREE Author's biography and stories in the trial version

H. G. Wells (1866 - 1946) was an English writer most famous today for the science fiction novels: The Invisible Man, The Island of Dr Moreau, The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds. These novels are included in the collection, making it an excellent ebook.

More of a horror than science fiction, THE ISLAND OF DR MOREAU is a disturbing and unforgettable book. Wells had a knack for making his stories come to life through the voice of the narrator, whom, as Pendrick in this book, seems like he's telling the story of something that really did happen. You can almost feel the emotion behind the words as Pendrick tells his tale. The almost-human creations of Moreau are nothing less than freaky. Both scarily mysterious and horribly familiar, these creatures evoke conflicting emotion in the reader. Should they just be put out of their misery? or encouraged to live? You can't help feeling both horror and pity for these very disturbing characters.

While it is a short book, it feels complete, without any unnecessary inclusions, while still telling the story in its entirety. Wells knew the lessons he wanted to teach and the buttons he wanted to press, and accomplished his goals. The implications of man playing God, the reason of our religion, and the definitions of humanity are powerful messages that you can't help but absorb when reading this book. One thing, I wouldn't call this book an argument against science, but against tearing down the boundaries around the definition of humanity.

Take a couple of days and read this one for fun. A great example of Wells' work and an enjoyable novel.

This book arrived well before the expected date and was a great buy. I will be buying from them again.

H.G. Wells' fantastic imagination is readily apparent within his visionary books such as The Time Machine and The Invisible Man, however I consider The Island of Dr. Moreau to be his greatest work in this regards. In less than 200 pages, Wells' manages to trap the reader within the mind of an uninvited "guest" on a remote island strewn with subhuman creatures, ghastly experiments, and a raving mad scientist.

This is simply an amazing story, made even more so given its 1896 publication date.

Considering this novel was first published in 1896, it is a testament to Wells' visionary imagination. His description of horrific vivisection experiments is a century ahead of its time. Dr. Moreau is portrayed as the ultimate villain, disregarding ethics for his own desire to play God in the name of scientific advancement. This is a great work of early science fiction that challenges the moral implications of science even today.

After reading The War of the Worlds a couple years back, I was very turned off to H.G. Wells. I mean, what an awful ending to that story. I remember feeling like all of the events and various moving parts in the story were building to a big, beautiful, explosive climax, and then the next minute it was over and I'm left standing there confused and angry.

Thankfully, Island of Dr. Moreau has restored my faith in Wells.

The novel hooked me right in with this structure of a story within a story, and the style of a true and scientific account kept me intrigued throughout. Plus, it was violent and animalistic. It did a lot of interesting exploring into the human psyche and condition, not just about our inner animal, but about our scientific curiosities, our behaviors in various situations, etc.

That's not even mentioning all of the fascinating topics Wells broached that are so timeless to have spawned many copycat stories. Sometimes in reading classics after having read and been exposed to so many stories that seem to descend directly from said classic, it can be difficult for the original story to really grab my attention. That was not at all the case here; Wells original seems to withstand the test of time and even survive a critique from myself of the ADD and video game generation.

Bravo, H.G.

The book is over a hundred years old, so you'll forgive a few spoilers. There are actually two related stories here:

First, there's Mr. Bedford, who has no scientific training and mooches a ride to the moon with Mr. Cavor, where he plots all his business ideas and bludgeons scores of moon people to death with a solid gold crowbar. He goes home, a stupid little kid accidentally flies off in the Cavorite sphere, and that's that. Good times. Convenient how he, against the extremely long odds mentioned by the narrator, not only gets back to earth, but back to England.

Next, there's Mr. Cavor, who gets left on the moon more or less out of necessity, and perhaps by his own choice. The Selenites track him down, and begin to communicate with him. How inconsiderate of Mr. Cavor to make them all learn English instead of him learning their language, especially since they only have one language globally. Here we get into the book's social commentary, which Wells was always big on but which posterity has forgotten in favor of his science fiction elements. Is it truly by accident that Cavor mentions that he's the only way humans can get back to the moon, and that he fails to send earth his formula for Cavorite? Or is he conveniently trying to keep the indigenous peoples from being trampled down by the earth's world powers? Plus we have the Selenites' interesting social structure, like communism, to the extreme.

Reading this book for the first time in the twenty-first century, one's thoughts go like this: "Hey, Wells made some pretty decent predictions about helium and the moon...well, except for the moon plants...and the giant moon cows...and the moon ant people. Never mind."

Wells was a great writer, though, and this story is engaging and, early on, humorous. Seems like he was trying to outdo Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon and its sequel. The First Men in the Moon is over the top in this day and age, maybe, but in 1900 nobody knew any better. Well done, sir.

RECOMMENDED

Bob Eggleton's wonderful illustrations are in the Starblaze Edition of The First Men in the Moon. Collectors of science fiction art and of Eggleton will want to buy this edition.

It is perhaps a cliché to suggest that H.G. Wells was a man with an imagination ahead of his time. Wells was writing in the late Victorian era but was still able to visualise future societies and even inventions that today have reasonable credibility. He was a science fiction writer of great clarity. Although Wells is justifiably better known for "The Time Machine" and "War of the Worlds", "The First Men in the Moon" is still a worthy work.

Despite publishing this novel in 1901, Wells was aware of the issues of lunar gravity and the consequences of this to those on the moon. He knew that lunar gravity was only one sixth of that on earth. However, he also wrote of the moon as having an atmosphere. But most writers of the time would have assumed this too. They would also have reasonably assumed the real possibility of life on the moon.

"The First Men in the Moon" tells the story of Professor Cavor and his discovery of a material that was opaque to gravity. He was befriended by Bedford who is the narrator of the tale. Together, the two build a sphere that transports them to the lunar surface where they discover a bizarre world of "Selenites" that primarily live beneath the ground.

Understandably, both men a fearful yet curious about this alien environment. However, it is Cavor who is captured by the moon's inhabitants and is unable to flee back to Earth. Bedford survives to tell of their travels. Yet the story is completed by the transmission of radio messages from Cavor back from the moon. And remember that this was written by a man with only a knowledge of the world at the turn of the 19th Century!

"The First Men in the Moon" is not one of Wells's great works. It is, however, part of his large body of work that continues to capture a modern audience.

This is by far my favorite HG Wells. It's the first one I read and the one I keep rereading. I've read it three times now and have enjoyed it every time. This is science fiction at its best, with convincing descriptions of the lunar landscape and inhabitants, as well as human interest and complex character development.

Like all science fiction, it requires suspension of disbelief to appreciate fully. Don't expect Wells to write like a scientist, and you'll be fine.

I love this book! Oh, and if it helps inform, I have a master's degree in physics.

Mr Bedford, a recently bankrupt Victorian gentleman has retired to the English countryside to recover his spirit and write a play. He meets Dr Cavor, an eccentric, quaintly comical scientific genius researching the preparation of a compound he calls "Cavorite" that will be opaque to all radiation including gravity. When a laboratory error results in the wildly successful early completion of the Cavorite project, Bedord and Cavor use it to create a sphere that is capable of travel to the moon.

The science in HG Wells' "First Men in the Moon" is now known to be wildly off the mark - anti-gravity; a lunar atmosphere that freezes during the frigid lunar night and sublimates into a rarified but breathable air during the warmer day; an extraordinarily fecund flora that seeds itself, germinates, grows, blooms and completes its life cycle during the brief sunlight hours; and a civilized but strictly class structured lunar insect-like people living under the moon's surface that Bedord and Cavor called "Selenites".

Despite its failings in the light of current scientific knowledge, "First Men in the Moon" is still an enjoyable adventure written in typical late Victorian style that gives us an early taste of 20th century science fiction space opera to follow. Just as he did in his better known novel "The Time Machine", Wells successfully uses his protagonists, Bedord and Cavor, as tools to discuss, satirize and critique deeply and dearly held British notions of class and imperialism.

Suspending your belief and accepting the science in terms of what was known and understood at the turn of the century will allow you to whisk yourself away on a space-faring adventure for an enlightening, enjoyable few hours. Recommended.

Paul Weiss

This is one of my favorite books. H.G. Wells is the best author. I had read his War of the Worlds and First Men in the Moon and some of his other books so I had to read it. I recommend this book for any H.G. Wells fan or just sci-fi fan.

Before you read this story, make sure you have all the equipment. First, go to Wikipedia and get a copy of the expanded Chapter 11. I'm not sure why this has not been reintegrated into more texts, or at least included as an appendix. My George Pal movie tie-in edition did have it reinserted, which, by the way, caused me a lot of consternation when I read other books, but . . .

The second thing you need is a public domain copy of "The Chronic Argonauts." It is not a rough draft, but more of a prequel or concept-forming work that led up to the classic book.

Third, get a copy of "The Time Ships," the sequel authorized by the Wells estate.

So begin with "The Chronic Argonauts," picturing Dr. Moses Nebogipfel as a cousin or uncle to the protagonist of in the full novel. This story is jerky, and is merely Gothic techno-horror, but by comparing the two, you do get a chance to see what makes an otherwise moderately interesting story into a great classic.

So to the book. Like Mark Twain's "Connecticut Yankee," "The Time Machine" is social commentary disguised as science fiction. Wells was a dyed-in-the-wool socialist, and was concerned with the social conditions of bifurcated England. Remember the late 1800's was the era of the capitalist and proletariat that Marx and Dickens wrote about. Taking that as his starting point, Wells uses his novel to illustrate the long term consequences--the very long term consequences-of the social split.

Via the Time Machine, we see that in AD 802,701, the overclass evolved into the Eloi (Aramaic for "My God"), with the underclass evolved into the Moorlock. History's irony is that the Eloi are the fatted cattle, and the underworld Moorlocks have the upper hand. Apparently the Communist Revolution took longer than Marx and Engels thought, and with a bitter ending to the dialectic materialism.

Americans who come from the tradition of railsplitter Abe Lincoln, we are not sensitive to how social standing locks people into place and position. To aEuropean, however, this class-consciousness is very obvious--think of Harry Potter's mudbloods. Considering this, Wells's criticism was well founded and well placed.

Yet, there is something more to this story than just social commentary that has been reiterated time and time again. For example, JRR Tolkien's essay "On Fairy-Stories," which is ostensibly about fantasy, cites "The Time Machine" several times. Keep in mind that the early roots of "The Lord of the Rings," especially the story "The Lost Road," was actually a time-travel story set in Atlantis.

Chapter 1 and the discussion of the fallacy of the instantaneous cube suggests that the book's appeal may just be the added fourth dimension to the story. Other books are limited to space--the moon, the Island of Dr. Moreau, the Lost World, the center of the earth, or 20,000 leagues under the sea--but this book adds another dimension to the story. In this way, the story is not flat and two-dimensional. It is not even three-dimensional like a pop-up book. Its strength is that it is fourth dimensional. As stereo speakers add to the sound, and the red-blue anaglyphic glasses add to a film's dimension, this temporal consideration enhances the story's texture. We are looking along a hitherto unseen axis, and therefore have a deeper and thus more comprehensive understanding and vision of the book's theme.

Most of contemporary Time Travel stories--beginning with the Hugo wining "City on the Edge of Forever" episode of Star Trek and perfected in "Back to the Future"--have revolved around variations of the Grandfather Paradox. The original, however, is different. It is social commentary disguised as a classic Victorian Adventure story. We don't get logic games, or any temporal reset buttons--Star Trek: Voyager's Deus Ex Time Machina--just a heart-pounding and mind-expanding advenrure.

I think time travel lends itself to social commentary because, as mortals, we are near-sighted. We have the obvious present around us, and first and second hand memories of the past, but how do we see the future? How can we get beyond Stage One of existence, to, say Stage Twenty, or even Stage 802,701? Yet long term thinking, which we are really incapable of doing, is existentially essential. The idea of Time Machines aids our thinking--we can imagine, or better yet, extrapolate from the present to a hypothetical future.

This is exactly what Wells's did with his book. He took the grubbing existence of the poor, contrasted it with the silver spoon existence of the rich, and added a touch of gritty Serling-eque irony with the Moorlock-working class living off the flesh and blood of the Eloi luxury class.

I'm not sure how successful Wells was in his day. Nowadays, he is a household name. There have been two film adaptations of this story. Certainly the situation he described has changed for the First World. The moral message seems to have worked: and it began with changing hearts by this story.

H.G. Wells is one of those writers where I find that I am more interested in him than I am in his writing. Does that make me hopeless? I liked the Time Machine and the Invisible Man, but I don't love them. They are interesting as early speculative fiction and certainly interesting in the social perspective that they uncover. But interesting is not the same as moving for me, somehow.

Of the two novels, I liked the Time Machine the best. Justly famous both for being an ancestor of modern speculative fiction and for its social message about classes, it is a strong piece of writing. The Morlocks, the Eloi, the decaying world-- Wells paints a compelling picture, and I understand and appreciate the work.

The Invisible Man seemed much less developed to me. I like the way that the main character's invisibility both led to and stemmed from his questioning of moral certainty. Unfortunately the idea seemed much more developed than the story itself-- as though Wells had been bored with carrying things through.

I think that the next Wells that I pick up would be his Experiment in Autobiography. I suspect that given how much more I like his ideas than his fiction skills I may be better off with non-fiction and letters.

Both these short novels are still must-reads by virtue of their influence and historical significance. Recommended for readers of all ages. In fact, they might have gone down better with me when I was younger.

1 star for the edition, 5 stars for the stories = 3 stars.

Imagine that you are the typical Barnes and Noble customer. You like to walk in, grab a coffee, roam around for awhile, and look for good books and good deals. You wander up to the Barnes and Noble Classics section, and spot `The Time Machine' and `The Invisible Man', both by H.G. Wells, in one book for 5 bucks. "I've always wanted to read H.G. Wells," you think to yourself. You pay for it and head to a chair with your still warm coffee to sit down and do a little fun science fiction reading. As with all Barnes and Noble Classics, this one has an introduction by some supposed literary expert, so you start with that. This one is written by Alfred Adam, a comparative literature professor.

Soon you learn from Mr. Adam that his book is not science fiction, but instead is dark social commentary. Before you realize it, you're plunged into an analysis of Marxian thought tied up with Hegelian history and Well's own experiences in the late 19th century. Worse, before having even read either of the stories you know (for example, in The Time Machine) the central characters, the races of the future and how they relate to Well's view of the "loss of human consciousness," vital plot points no `introduction' should include, and an analysis of the ending! And the same occurs with his description of `The Invisible Man.' For example; on the last page of the introduction is an exact description of what happens to the invisible man at the end of the story. Before you even get to the stories, you find yourself already depressed at what Mr. Adams takes as Well's vision of the world, as well as having read plot spoilers and the endings to each story. Somehow un-fazed, you drive on.

So you begin to read the story. However, before you even get past the first sentence you begin to encounter bizarre footnotes. The same person who already ruined the stories for you has followed you into the stories themselves! And for whatever reason (my guess is that he is a little elitist), he seems to feel the need to translate words he doesn't think you'd understand. Vastly difficult words like `unhinged' and `saddle,' which he helpfully tells you mean `upset' and `bicycle seat.' You can't help but chuckle to yourself as you read these footnotes, yet you find yourself irritated at the fact that you were interrupted in order to find out the meaning of the verb `to dress' (`put on an evening dress, or tuxedo, for dinner.')

But the fun doesn't end there. There are endnotes as well! These mostly lack the comical nature of the footnotes (mostly; note 7 of chapter 1 of `The Time Machine' informs you that when the narrator spoke, and describes the sentence with "said I", that this is the narrator speaking and is therefore an objective viewpoint.)

You do manage to make it through `The Time Machine," as it is fairly short, though not without struggle. You fight off the urge to go put the book you bought back on the shelf, or better yet in the garbage, or better yet to go put all the remaining copies in the `humor' section. Instead, you cut your losses and walk out the door. As you do, you think to yourself, "Well, this edition took all the joy out of reading what should be an enjoyable story..."

In all seriousness, do not buy this edition. Yes, you get two H.G. Wells' stories in a compact book for $5, but there are much better editions out there for not much more. Or read it online. When I read older `classics,' I already have a good idea of what the book will be like, or about. Then I just want a cheap edition in which to read it. I very much enjoyed both `The Time Machine' and `The Invisible Man.' But the edition should allow me to read the stories without distraction, and the intro should be a little background on the author and the period in which it was written. This introduction was completely misplaced, and the footnotes were comical. Avoid this book; buy a different edition.

I would say a pretty good book to read. In the begining I was a little confused on all the big words in the book but i still think that it was a good book because the author lets us discover what the words meant by context clues and such things. This story will captivate you once the Time Traveller goes into the future. However someone took his time machine once he got there.He meets a woman , Weena, who is an Eloi (a creature of the future). Together they have to be careful of the carnivorous Morlocks. Can their affection for one another save them? Will the Time Traveller ever find his time machine ? Read to find out. ;]

Herbert George Wells (1866-1946) is remembered as one of the very pioneers of the genre of science-fiction. He is also remembered for his Leftist politics, including a stint with the Fabian Society and his embracing of "Free Love." This book was written in 1899, and is one of the last science-fiction books he wrote before his turn towards social realism in his writing.

In this dystopian novel, Graham falls into a coma-like sleep, a sleep that he wakes from some 203 years in the future. But times have changed. Due to the wise investments of a board of trustees, Graham's money has compounded into the greatest fortune the world has ever seen, and the trustees have used it to virtually enslave the entire planet. The common people know that those who use "The Master's" money are misusing it, and they pine for a time when the sleeper will wake and set things right. But now that Graham is awake, he finds himself a pawn in a world he little understands.

Overall, I found this to be an interesting book. H.G. Wells made a lot of predictions in the book that have sense come to pass, including airplanes, the rise of trans-national corporations that are not under the control of their nation of origin, the rise of a decadent class of useless, pretty, party-people (Hollywood), and so much more. The one fly in the ointment, however, was Wells' use of race. The leaders use an army of "Negroes" to control the population, "They are fine loyal brutes, with no wash of ideas in their heads..."

But, that said, I did find this to be a fascinating, forward looking book. Mr. Wells is rightly remembered for his near prescience in matters of science, and this book shows how much he knew about the future of economics as well. I highly recommend this book.

When the sleeper wakes is a fairly good book, but not something I would choose to read again. The book doesn't exactly give either a realistic or creative idea for the future, when 'The Sleeper' ends up in 2010. There are barely any things that change in those two hundred years, which is an odd concept to handle. How they refer to people is the same as in the beginning of the story when he's in the 1800's.

In "When the Sleeper Wakes", H.G. Wells departs from his previous occupation of writing novels based on fantasy and fabrication and turns to using the methods of science fiction and applying his projections of societal development to his stories.

In making his projections of what the future was to be like, Wells saw the enemy as monopolist/capitalist and portrayed them in the future as the great corporation.

This was the evil of capitalism, which lead Wells to conclude that the business states would take the place of what was 19th Century Governments.

The flaw with this in the novel is that as a result of this new type of order, individuals are victims of the category of person that fate places them in. People are measured by their utility or lack of utility.

Wells' vision is repulsive rather than desirable, and it is clear that he doesn't believe in the ability of society to live up to its own ideals of equality and justice.

We've seen this played out on the world stage during the industrial revolution, which gave birth to the evils of communism. Wells was a visionary, no doubt, but this story underestimates the human spirit and what happens when you combine Democracy with Capitalism!

The Everyman edition is really great, though it has many additional information about H.G. Wells and his time. So if you want to get additional information this book is the right one. John Lawtons introduction gives you a brief overview about H.G. Wells and the book. A listing of historical facts, Wells life and science and art, sort by date, gives the reader the possibility to understand his books better. At the end some critics are collected and suggestions for further reading are made.

The book itself / Summary:
A stranger came to an artist and reported him that he can't sleep. The artist invites him in his house, where the stranger falls asleep in a chair. The artist thinks he died, as he doesn't react anymore, but he just fell into a deep trance. The years passed on and Isbister, the artist, doesn't believe that he will ever wake again.
But long after Isbister's death, Graham, the stranger, wakes in an unknown surrounding and everything seems very strange. From outside he can hear people screaming "Wake" but he doesn't know what this means and soon after his awakening he faints. After he recovers he is told that his trance lasted 203 years. He learns a lot about the new age and there is still the crowd which requires the Sleeper. Because of this, he goes on a balcony where the people can see him, but he is pulled away and a man leads him through a huge building and finally to the council. After a short discussion he is brought into 2 rooms, where he's kept imprisoned. In his room he discovers new things, but he doesn't get new information about the world. After a few days a few people help him to escape and after a chase he lands in a theatre, where the people receive him. But he is very weak and so he's brought into a small room, where Graham is told that he owns nearly the whole world, because his fortune grew steadily. He meets Lincoln, who was Ostrog's brother, who is the leader of the revolution, and an unknown beautiful woman. Graham appears in front of the crowd and tells them to march, because Lincoln told him to do so. Then a fight begins in front of the council house, which Graham watches guarded from the distance, but the enemies chase Graham and so he looses his guards and has to flee. In a lonely street he meets an old man, who tells him the history of the world and that Ostrog just takes advantage of the Sleeper. As Graham reveals himself the old man doesn't want to believe and so Graham goes back to Ostrog's headquarter, where he meets Ostrog for the first time. After watching the decline from the council, they go to the council house and Graham gets a Japanese attendant, whose name is Asano. Graham and Asano go to the top of a wind-vane and later to a high society party, where Graham is told much more about the world. After Graham flew with an Aeropile, an aeroplane, he is so fascinated that he spends his next days with becoming an aeronaut. Then he meets again the unknown woman, which is Helen Woton, a niece of Ostrog, she reports him of the slavery and bad conditions under which the people are living and begs that he should rule. He discusses his knew knowledge with Ostrog, but he tries to convince him that everything is necessary. However Graham, guarded by Asano, goes into the city to see how the people are really living. After watching the middle class and the stations in which children are brought up, he goes to the working places of the poor workers. He's very upset while watching them, but he hears shouts which tell him that the black police is coming. The black police is feared, as they are a cruel specialist unit of Negros, which should bring the people into order. Graham and Asano flee back to the headquarter, where Graham has a quarrel with Ostrog and as a result Ostrog wants to imprison him. However the crowd sees this and they free Graham, but an Aeropile can help Ostrog to escape. Helen comes back and Graham holds a speech to the people to prepare them for a war to prevent the black police from reaching London. They can capture one flight stage out of four, but this is not enough and so Graham decides to take an Aeropile to fight against the aeroplanes, which bring the black police. He's successful and able to dispel and even destroy some ships from the black police. After this large fight, he sees the Aeropile in which Ostrog flees and he starts to fight it but he looses and the earth is coming near.

Another of Wells' dark futuristic visions, this novel is about a man who falls into a deep sleep in the Victorian age and wakes up early in the 22nd century. Wells predicts much of the technology that would be invented in the 20th century. This story is not just a fascinating read but a poignant social commentary.

Interesting to listen to; note the extreme confidence of scientists and the military when initailly confronted by the Martians, an optimism that turns to despair when it hits home that Earthlings do not stand a chance. Also amusing to note the accents and diction of the radio announcers, very similar to the accents of radio and television announcers in the SouthPark cartoon series; no doubt Trey Parker and Matt Stone were lampooning the way Americans used to speak and sound, and of how current media has been "dumbed" down to serve a less literate listening and viewing public.

There's a reason that this CD is priced so low. My low rating has nothing to do with the material itself, but the poor quality audio. Welles's outstanding oratory skills and clever sound effects are overwhelmed by the low levels of the vocal track combined with an unrelenting hiss. The CD isn't even good for "old-timey" atmosphere, since *in between* the words of the original program they seemingly removed noise so there is a kind of "stutter". It's like listening to the show over a bad voice-activated radio circuit. Underwater.

By all means, get this classic recording. Just get it in a better, cleaned-up version. This CD is no bargain.

This (in)famous radio play is beautifully acted and produced, and even now, after all the advances in what might be called fright technology, remains creepy. The writing (now seemingly a lost art in broadcasting) is also terrific: a nice adaptation of Wells' elegant prose, just purple enough for this sort of material. It's nice to see this great broadcast given the (relative) immortality of the CD format.

This is not a review, but a question. I have heard the radio show on rather bad quality recordings, and my only hints of how it must have sounded are the snippets from the movie "The Night That Panicked America". If it sounded that good on the radio, then the impact can certainly be understood. It was well-produced. A Peruvian radio station also tried presenting War of the Worlds, and the angry people burned the station to the ground.

Is this CD a good buy in terms of restored audio quality? Can you actually hear the sound effects before the reporter calls attention to them?

If your first experience of WOTW is seeing the George Pal movie, then the plot of this radio play may seem confusing, but what's neat is that the radio play is more like the original story, with walking alien machines instead of ones that use a magnetic flux to fly.

And, I would say that the powers that be should release "The Night That Panicked America" on DVD. It would make a really nice four-pak: the original Wells novel, the Orson Welles radio play (with all the static and recording noise removed for the kind of quality you'd get a mile from the WCBS transmitter in New York), the George Pal movie and the 1970s movie about Orson Welles' broadcast. I hope someone puts them all together one day.

Ahh, the days when there was no such thing as television and people had to use their imaginations while listening to the radio.

I am 29 years old and I love collecting old radio programs, especially the "Suspense" series. I'm fascinated that people could write well enough to keep a listening audience's attention for a full thirty minutes and make them want to keep listening until the end. I have great respect for the actors and actresses of the era when radio was king as it takes a lot of talent to let your voice do the acting. Today, an "actor" or "actress" can get away with being attractive and being a bigger hit with trashy tabloids more than at the box office.

It is well known how much people were freaked out by this broadcast (so much so that the FCC launched an investigation including looking at whether or not Welles and his fellow actors were not part of some conspiracy to create such a hysteria) and, while listening to this, it's easy to imagine channel surfing on the evening of October 30, 1938 and catching the program well after Welles stated the obvious: That it was a radio play based on the H.G. Wells novel of the same title. It was authentic in that it included the names of men in FDR's cabinet and picked out small towns in Northern New Jersey where Martians initially landed. And, as another reviewer previosuly pointed out, the show was done in the same format that radio news shows were done then, so for those who missed Orson's explanation of the program, they were bound to think this was the real thing happening at that place and at that time.

Unfortunately, the mass hysteria and publicity (dare I say infamy?) was no doubt a jinx on the talented Welles. True, he made the mighty classic "Citizen Kane" in 1941 but, apart from that, he was, and still is, remembered as the guy who made people think that the world was really being attacked by Martians. Near the end of his life he made a comment on his career, "I started at the top and worked my way to the bottom."

It's a shame things turned out the way they did for Welles but one thing's for sure, he sure stirred up plenty of mischief on that Mischief Night in 1938.

The climactic and hilarious confrontation between Mr. Polly and the low-life ruffian Uncle Jim is so masterful that one might forget all the other comic gems included in this novel. At the same time, the reader will feel the power of Wells' legendary intelligence on every page. The History of Mr. Polly is loaded with thought-provoking observations on the topics of marraige, love, business, education, friendship, insurance fraud and -- most of all -- happiness.

The History of Mr. Polly is less known than Well's sci-fi classics and it is a different kind of a book too. It pictures a tragicomic story of an unusual character - Mr. Polly. The story is quite funny, but there underneath is a deeper meaning. There are people like Mr. Polly around us. They drift through their lives wondering if it is them or the environment that determined their fate.

Although Wells and Dostoyevsky are extremely diferent, Mr. Polly in a certain way reminds me of some Dostoyevsky's characters.

Very interesting book. Very well read by Clive Swift.

If you like this book, I can recommend you to read both Invisible Man by Wells and Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky.

This one came out of nowhere. An absolutely brilliant comic novel. Like all great comic novels, it's never patronizing. Though the narrator places himself at a distance from Mr. Polly, he's never condescends. The tone is warm and witty, genuinely moving rather than sentimental. It's an honest look at the middle class, cased in a Romantic (as in Knights and Quests) narrative. Really, really great. Definitely worth your time.

A friend recommended this book to me after I explained how much fun I was having after leaving work in DC, returning to Minnesota, playing with my kids, joining a mountain biking team and genuinely enjoying my unemplyed status for 9 months. She said it was a philosophical book.

I spent the entire book trying to figure out why she thought of this book after I got through telling her how great my life was at the present. Mr. Polly clearly was not living a great life and always seemed to be on the wrong side of circumstance. It wasn't until the very end of the book that I realized the context my friend applied to my happenings.

The book, for it's strange accents and period vocabulary, was as riveting as any Grisham or Baldacci novel. I don't really know why - but it was. And the last few pages makes one think very hard about the meaning of life, which even for an unemployed child-at-heart, is important to do now and again.

I finished reading this novella a few days ago. I must first admit that for the first 25 or so pages, I wasn't particulaly tuned into what the book was about. It is, as Wells mentioned, a history, so I was rather thrown at the beginning. Once I got the gist of it, particularly the gist of Mr. Polly and his eccentricities, I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

The only other Wells book I had read was the Island of Dr. Moreau, which, like his other romantic science-fiction novels he is famous for, was somewhat plot-driven rather than character-driven. This book, is, as the title would lead you to suspect, character-driven.

We begin our read with the bored, frustrated Mr. Polly, what he is feeling and how he deals with his life in general. Then the actual history starts, and Wells's beautiful, if somewhat excessive vocabulary answers the reader's question of who this Mr. Polly is. I found him to a be a very refreshing hero, being rather ordinary, and dealing with the concerns of anyone's life, particularly that of a middle-aged man. He does not "save the day" by perfoming any conventional (or even moral) acts, but this only makes him more real. Mr. Polly's passion for epithet is absolutely delightful, and gave me a great sense of pleasure to watch him go about his transformation.

This was a terriffic, merry little book, with a central character worthy of some of the finest in literature, at least from the limited literature I have read. Don't be fooled by the humorous facade however; there is a deeper message, one which will become relevant at some time in all our lives. It isn't one of Wells's most well known books, but it should be. A superb little gem.