The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells was first published in serialized form in Pearson’s Magazine from April to December of 1897. The next year the first edition of the complete novel was published. It was an immediate success. Translated editions in Dutch, German, Polish, French, Russian and Italian followed in close succession, as well as several other English language editions, and while some of them had a smattering of graphic elements — the occasional tripod on the cover or title page — the first fully illustrated edition wasn’t published until 1906.
The illustrator of this edition was Henrique Alvim Corrêa, a Brazilian artist who lived a short but intense and productive life. Alvim Corrêa was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1876 to a wealthy family. When Alvim Corrêa was 16 years old, the family moved to Lisbon before settling permanently in Paris a year later. In 1894 at the age of 18, he began his formal instruction in art under military painter Édouard Detaille. Military themes had been extremely popular in French art since the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871) and Henrique followed in his master’s footsteps, exhibiting well-received military pieces in the Paris Salons of 1896 and 1897.
Henrique Alvim Corrêa
. In 1903 Corrêa read The War of the Worlds and was inspired to draw his vision of Wells’ Martians which fit so handily with the recurring themes in his private work. Entirely unsolicited, Alvim Corrêa took his handful of drawings to London and showed them to Mr. Wells, who was so impressed with the artwork that he invited Alvim Corrêa to illustrate the upcoming special edition of The War of Worlds by Belgian publisher L. Vandamme.
+1. A LA VEILLE DE LA GUERRE(The Eve of the War)
No one would have believed, in the last years of the nineteenth century, that human affairs were being watche keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own;...
...le spectroscope indiqua une masse de gaz enflammés, principalement de l'hydrogène, s'avançant avec une vélocité énorme vers la terre.
...a mass of flaming gas, chiefly hydrogen, moving with an enormous velocity towards this earth.
Le Projectile
2.Le Météore (The Falling Star)
A mon bureau
Le Météore
Puis vint la nuit où tomba le premier météore. On le vît, dans le petit matin, passer au-dessus de Winchester, ligne de flamme allant vers l‘est, très haut dans l‘atmosphère.
Then came the night of the first falling star. It was seen early in the morning rushing over Winchester eastward, a line of flame, high in the atmosphere.
Then came the night of the first falling star. It was seen early in the morning rushing over Winchester eastward, a line of flame, high in the atmosphere.
Le vendeur de journeaux
3. SUR LA LANDE (On Horsell Common)
I found a little crowd of perhaps twenty people surrounding the huge hole in which the cylinder lay.
Cela ressemblait à un gazomètre rouillé, à demi enfoncé dans le sol, plus qu'à autre chose au monde.
It looked like a rusty gas-float half buried, more than anything else in the world.
Des gamins s'amusaient à jeter des pierres...
...and amusing themselves - until I stopped them - by throwing stones at the giant mass.
4. LE CYLINDRE SE DEVISSE (The Cylinder Unscrews)
Première panique
A boy came running towards me. "It's a-moving", he said to me as he passed - "a-screwin' and ascrewin'out. I don't like it...."
Il parvint à sortir une épaule et un genou, mais il parut retomber de nouveau et sa tête seule resta visible. Soudain il disparut et je m'imaginai qu'un faible cri venait jusqu'à moi.
Now he got his shoulder and knee up, and again he seemed to slip back until only his head was visible. Suddenly he vanished, and I could have fancied a faint shriek had reached me.
Now he got his shoulder and knee up, and again he seemed to slip back until only his head was visible. Suddenly he vanished, and I could have fancied a faint shriek had reached me.
Une grosse masse grisâtre et ronde, de la grosseur à peu près d'un ours, s'élevait lentement et péniblement hors du cylindre. Au moment où elle parut en pleine lumière, elle eût des reflets de cuir mouillé. Deux grands yeux sombres me regardaient fixement.
A big greyish, rounded bulk, the size perhaps, of a bear, was rising slowly and painfully out of the cylinder. As it bulged up and caught the light, it glistened like wet leather. Two large dark-coloured eyes were regarding me steadfastly.
5. LE RAYON ARDENT (The Heat-Ray)
Forthwith flashes of actual flame, a bright glare leaping from one to another, sprang from the scattered gruop of men. It was as if some invisible jet impinged upon them and flashed into white flame.
. . . un jet de lumière sans bruit presque et aveuglant, qui faisait s'affaisser, inanimés, tous ceux qu'il atteignait, et de même, quand l'invisible trait ardent passait sur eux, les pins flambaient et tous les buissons de genêts secs s'enflammaient avec un bruit sourd.
An almost noiseless and blinding flash of light, and a man fell headlong and lay still, and as the unseen shaft of heatpassed over them, pinetrees burst into fire, and every dry furze-bush became with thud a mass of flames.
6. LE RAYON ARDENT SUR LA ROUTE DE CHOBHAM (The Heat-Ray in the Chobham Road)
la route, faisant éclater les briques, fracassant les carreaux, enflammant les boiseries des
fenêtres et faisant s'écrouler en miettes le pignon d'une maison.
Then, with a whistling note that rose above the droning of the pit, the beam swung close over their heads, lighting the tops of beech-trees that line the road, and splitting the bricks, smashing the windows, firing the window-frames, and bringing down in crumbling ruin a portion of the gable of the house nearest corner.
Tous s'enfuirent aussi confusément qu'un troupeau de moutons.
They must have bolted as blindly as a flock of sheep.
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8. COMMENT JE RENTRAI CHEZ MOI (HOW I REACHED HOME)
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Sans le savoir, c'était le dernier dîner civilisé que je devais faire pendant
d'étranges et terribles jours.
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8. VENDREDI SOIR (FRIDAY NIGHT)
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9. LA LUTTE COMMENCE (THE FIGHTING BEGINS)
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10. EN PLEINE MÊLEE (IN THE STORM)
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11. A LA FENÊTRE (AT THE WINDOW)
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"I lay still," he said, "scared out of my wits, with the forequarters of a horse atop of me. We'd been wiped out..."
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He saw this one pursue a man, catch him up in one of its steely tentacles...
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12. CE QUE JE VIS DE LA DESTRUCTION DE WEYBRIDGE ET DE SHEPPERTON
(WHAT I SAW OF THE DESTRUCTION OF WEYBRIDGE AND SHEPPERTON)
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"Giants in armour, sir. Hundred feet high. Three legs and a body like l'uminium, with a mighty great head in a hood, sir"
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...and then of the four carrying the debris of their comrade between them,...
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Ils avaient passé tout près de moi et deux d‘entre eux étaient penchés sur les ruines écumeuses et tumultueuses de leur camarade. Les deux autres étaient debout dans l’eau auprès de lui, l'un à deux cents mètres de moi, l'autre vers Laleham. Ils agitaient violemment les générateurs du Rayon Ardent et le jet sifflant frappait en tous sens et de toutes parts.
They had passed by me, and two were stooping over the frothing tumultuous ruins of their comrade.The third and the fourth stood beside him the water, one perhaps 200 yards from me, the other towards Laleham. The generators of the Heat-Rays waved high, and the hissing beams smote down this way and that.
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13. PAR QUEL HASARD JE RENCONTRE LE VICAIRE
(HOW I FELL IN WITH THE CURATE)
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We had better follow this path, I said, northward.
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14. A LONDRES (IN LONDON)
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In Wellington Street my brother met a couple of sturdy roughs, who had just rushed out of Fleet Street with still wet newspapers and starting placards. "Dreadful catastrophe!"
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At that time there was a strong feeling in the streets that the authorities were to blame for their incapacity to dispose of the invaders...
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The bells of the neighbouring church made a jangling tumult,...
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He heard footsteps running to and fro in the rooms, and up and down stairs behind him...
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As my brother began to realize the import of all these things, he turned hastily to his own room, put all his available money - some ten pounds altogether - into his pockets, and went out again into the streets.
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15. LES EVENEMENTS DANS LE SURREY
(WHAT HAD HAPPENED IN SURREY)
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The shells flashed all round the Martian, and they saw advance a few paces stagger, and go down.
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...and incontinently disengaged an enormous volume of a heavy inky vapour, coiling and pouring upwards in a huge and ebony cumulus cloud,...
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...,and how he looked down from the church spire and saw the houses of the village rising like ghosts out of its inky nothingness.
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16. LA PANIQUE
(THE EXODUS FROM LONDON)
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She fired at six yards' distance, narrowly missing my brother...
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One man in evening dress passed them on foot, his eyes on the ground....saw one hand clutched in his hair and the other beating invisible things...
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In one cart stood a blind man in the uniform of the Salvation Army, gesticulating with his crooked fingers and bawling, Eternity! Eternity!
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Them my brother's attention was distracted by a bearded, eagle-faced man lugging a small handbag, which split even as my brother's eyes rested on it, and disgorged a mass of sovereigns...
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The two women sat silent, crouching in their seats and shivering...
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They must have bolted as blindly as a flock of sheep.
d'étranges et terribles jours.
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Tout au long de la nuit, les Marsiens s'agitèrent et martelèrent, infatigables et sans sommeil, à l‘oeuvre après les machines qu'ils apprêtaient, et de temps en temps une bouffée grisâtre tourbillonnait vers le ciel étoile.
All night long the Martians were hammering and stirring, sleepless, indefatigable, at work upon the machines they were making ready, and ever and ever again a puff of greenish-whitre smoke whirled up to the starlit sky.
I had a vague idea of going on to my own home, and that was as much motive as I had.
Mon imagination était hantée par ces monstres de métal à l‘allure si terriblement rapide et par le souvenir du cadavre écrasé contre la palissade.
...staggered to the foot ofthe staircase, and sat down. My imagination was full of those striding metallic monsters, and of the dead body smashed against the fence.
Un peu plus tard, ce bouclier se dressa sur trois pieds et devint la première des machines que j'avais vues.
Later this shield staggered up on tripod legs, and became the first of the fighting machines I had seen.
(WHAT I SAW OF THE DESTRUCTION OF WEYBRIDGE AND SHEPPERTON)
We saw one shrivelled old fellow with a huge box and a score or more of flower-pots containing orchids, angrily expostulating with the corporal who would leave them behind.
People came panting along underheavy burdens; one husband and wife were even carrying a small outhouse door between them, with some of their household goods piled thereon.
Simultanément deux obus éclatèrent en l'air, mais près du corps du Marsien, au moment où
la tête se tortillait juste à temps pour recevoir, et trop tard pour esquiver, un quatrième obus.
Celui-ci éclata en plein contre la tête du monstre. L'espèce de capuchon de métal fut crevé, éclata et alla tournoyergdans l'air en une douzaine de fragments de métal brillant et de lambeaux de chair rougfeâtre. — Touché !
Simultaneously two other shells burst in the air near the body as the hood twisted round in time to receive, but not in time to dodge, the fourth shell. The shell burst clean in the face of the thing. The hood bulged, flashed, was whirled off in a dozen tattered fragments of red flesh and glittering metal. Hit!
la tête se tortillait juste à temps pour recevoir, et trop tard pour esquiver, un quatrième obus.
Celui-ci éclata en plein contre la tête du monstre. L'espèce de capuchon de métal fut crevé, éclata et alla tournoyergdans l'air en une douzaine de fragments de métal brillant et de lambeaux de chair rougfeâtre. — Touché !
Simultaneously two other shells burst in the air near the body as the hood twisted round in time to receive, but not in time to dodge, the fourth shell. The shell burst clean in the face of the thing. The hood bulged, flashed, was whirled off in a dozen tattered fragments of red flesh and glittering metal. Hit!
Ils avaient passé tout près de moi et deux d‘entre eux étaient penchés sur les ruines écumeuses et tumultueuses de leur camarade. Les deux autres étaient debout dans l’eau auprès de lui, l'un à deux cents mètres de moi, l'autre vers Laleham. Ils agitaient violemment les générateurs du Rayon Ardent et le jet sifflant frappait en tous sens et de toutes parts.
They had passed by me, and two were stooping over the frothing tumultuous ruins of their comrade.The third and the fourth stood beside him the water, one perhaps 200 yards from me, the other towards Laleham. The generators of the Heat-Rays waved high, and the hissing beams smote down this way and that.
(HOW I FELL IN WITH THE CURATE)
I saw an abandoned boat, very small and remote, drifting downstream, and, throwing off the most of my sodden clothes, I went after it, gained it, and so escaped out of that destruction.
(WHAT HAD HAPPENED IN SURREY)
Alors, le Marsien qui se trouvait le plus près de nous éleva son tube et le déchargea, à la
manière d‘un canon, avec un bruit sourd qui fit trembler le sol. Le Marsien qui était près de
Staines lui répondit. Il n’y eut ni flammes ni fumée, rien que cette lourde détonation.
manière d‘un canon, avec un bruit sourd qui fit trembler le sol. Le Marsien qui était près de
Staines lui répondit. Il n’y eut ni flammes ni fumée, rien que cette lourde détonation.
And then the Martian beside us raised his tube on high and discharged it gunwise, with a heavy report that made the ground heave. The Martian towards Staines answered him. There was no flash, no smoke, simply that loaded detonation.
(THE EXODUS FROM LONDON)
