Foreword
No one would have believed, in these first few decades of the Twentieth Century, how vastly human affairs could have been altered by a terrible invasion from space. That terrible onslaught from our planetary neighbors, our enemies the Martians, has left great scars and wrought great changes upon this green and blue world we call home.
My own chronicle of the Martian invasion that took place at the turn of our century is well known and, I suspect, familiar to all readers. In this retrospective, however, I have compiled several reports from other notables whose experiences during the Martian attacks may prove interesting and enlightening to students of mankind’s first interplanetary war.
Because of the great turmoil of the time, some of the dates contradict, as do some of the events depicted here. (Messrs. Verne and Picasso have refused to speak with each other further on account of the discrepancies in their accounts of the sacking of Paris.) Due to the literary stature of Mr. Henry James, I have also included his account of the siege of London, though I question his interpretation of events; his journals are purported to have been written at the time, but I have no recollection of his keeping any written record during our excursions.
As it has been through the ages, history lives in the memories of the survivors, and sometimes those memories contain flaws. Nevertheless, these accounts deserve to be published—and let the future decide their worth.
Finally, I must thank my good friend, Monsieur Jules Verne, for his assistance in obtaining several of these manuscripts, as well as providing an Afterword to this volume.
—H.G. Wells