175 Matching Annotations
  1. May 2020
    1. Crystal Palace

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 228: "a Victorian exhibition center constructed (in 1854 by Sir John Paxton) of glass and iron. It was originally used to showcase materials from the Great Exhibition of 1851. The Palace, which burned in the 1930s, was in Sydenham in southeast London, about eight miles from the city center."

      GANGNES: The Crystal Palace was a massive glass structure constructed for the Great Exhibition of 1851. It stood in Hyde Park, London until it was moved to Sydenham Hill in 1852-4, where it remained until it was burned down in 1936. During the Exhibition, it housed exhibits on cultures, animals, and technologies from all over the world.

      More information:

      "View from the Knightsbridge Road of The Crystal Palace in Hyde Park for Grand International Exhibition of 1851":

    2. would fight no more for ever

      GANGNES: Note here that HUGHES AND GEDULD disagree with MCCONNELL's identification of the reference.

      From MCCONNELL 289-90: "A last, and very curious, invocation of the sub-theme of colonial warfare and exploitation. In 1877 Chief Joseph of the Nez Percé Indians had surrendered to the United States Army in a noble and widely-reported speech: 'I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed. . . . Hear me, my chiefs, I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more for ever.' Wells, by associating the tragic dignity of Chief Joseph's language with the now-defeated Martian invader, achieves a striking reversal of emotion. For we now understand that it is the Martians, pathetically overspecialized prisoners of their own technology, who are the truly pitiable, foredoomed losers of this war of the worlds, of ecologies, of relationships to Nature."

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 224: MCCONNELL's comment is "farfetched. ... [T]he Nez Perce in Wells's day were unsung, and he would not deal in such an obscure allusion."

      More information:

    3. Baker Street

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 227: "an important thoroughfare in London's West End area. The (fictitious) home of Sherlock Holmes was at 221B Baker Street."

      GANGNES: The majority of the Sherlock Holmes stories, like The War of the Worlds, were serialized in a popular general-interest periodical--in this case, The Strand Magazine. Arthur Conan Doyle, who wrote the Holmes stories, was an active fiction writer around the same time as Wells, and they published in some of the same periodicals.

      More information:

    1. Briareus

      From MCCONNELL 259: "in Greek myth, a pre-Olympian giant with fifty heads and a hundred hands."

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 220: "In Greek mythology Briareus was a giant with fifty heads and a hundred hands."

      From STOVER 210: "Briareus, in Greek mythology, is a giant with fifty heads and a hundred hands. The Martians' robotic Handling Machines are the multiplex hands of their guiding heads--one giant in their common purpose."

      From DANAHAY 156: "in mythology, a monster with a hundred hands"

      More information:

    1. Fifth Cylinder

      GANGNES: MCCONNELL 240 identifies this as a "contradiction. The fourth start had fallen late Sunday night, north of where the narrator and the curate are hiding..., and the narrator only hears of it later, from his brother. So it is impossible for him to know, at the time, that this is the fifth star; he should think it is the fourth." A case could be made, however, that the narrator is writing this in retrospect, and therefore could be imposing his later knowledge of which cylinder it is onto his impressions at the time.

      HUGHES AND GEDULD further complicate the matter by responding to MCCONNELL: "But the first three cylinders fell one after the other late on the nights of Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Doubtless the narrator simply assumes that the fourth fell 'late Sunday night' and that this one (late Monday night) is the fifth. ... The real trouble is that--far from being unaware of the fourth cylinder--the narrator should be only too well acquainted with it. It fell the previous night, into Bushey Park, which he and the curate have just traversed. But Wells has forgetfully caused the park to contain nothing more remarkable than 'the deer going to and fro under the chestnuts.'"

    2. semi-detached villa

      From MCCONNELL 238: "a still-common English term for a suburban dwelling house"

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 216: "a fashionable name for a kind of small suburban house--in this case a two-family structure--popularly considered to be a 'better class' of dwelling"

      GANGNES: Americans might call this kind of house a high-end "duplex," in that the structure itself is the size of a large house, but there are two "homes" within it, separated by a long dividing wall. Many semi-detached houses have two floors.

    3. Pompeii

      From MCCONNELL 236: "the Roman city on the Bay of Naples, completely buried by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 A.D."

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 216: "The eruption of Mount Vesuvius near Naples on August 24, A.D. 79 buried the towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum under thousands of tons of volcanic ash and lava, killing some 20,000 inhabitants."

      From DANAHAY 136: "The Roman city of Pompeii was destroyed by a volcanic eruption in 79 A.D. Archaeologists found citizens of Pompeii who had been overcome by the ash from the eruption preserved where they had fallen."

      More information:

    4. Blackfriars Bridge. At that the Pool became a scene of mad confusion, fighting and collision, and for some time a multitude of boats and barges jammed in the northern arch of the Tower Bridge

      GANGNES: Blackfriars Bridge and Tower Bridge are two large bridges spanning the Thames from north to south in the eastern part of London. Today, the Millennium Bridge (a pedestrian bridge) and Southwark Bridge lie between them, but Southwark Bridge was not opened until 1921, and the Millennium Bridge 2000 (hence the name). These are four of the five Thames bridges overseen today by the London City Corporation. See the City of London site's page on bridges.

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 227: Blackfriars Bridge is "a bridge in central London between Waterloo Bridge and Southwark Bridge. It spans the Thames from Queen Victoria Street (on the north) to Southwark Street (on the south).

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 234: Tower Bridge is "London's most famous bridge. It opens periodically to admit the passage of shipping. It spans the Thames between the Tower of London (on the north) and the district of Bermondsey (on the south)."

    1. Vestry

      GANGNES: Note that MCCONNELL, HUGHES AND GEDULD, and STOVER do not completely agree on their explanations of this reference.

      From MCCONNELL 218: In the Church of England, the Vestry is not just the room in a church where vestments are stored; it is also a committee of parishioners who arrange local matters like street cleaning.

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 214: "Vestry here is not used in its usual ecclesiastical sense but refers to a committee of citizens 'vested' with the task of arranging for such basic local services as health and food inspection and garbage disposal. St. Pancras (then a London borough) is located northwest of the City of London."

      From STOVER 161: "A public-health committee of that city district responsible for its garbage removal--a task now beyond its capacity as all public services are overwhelmed."

    2. Essex towards Harwich

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 229: Essex is "a county of southeast England bordered by Cambridge and Suffolk (on the north), the river Thames (on the south), London (on the southwest), and the North Sea, Middlesex, and Hertford (on the east)."

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 230: Harwich is "a North Sea port in northeast Essex, at the confluence of the rivers Stout and Orwell, about seventy miles northeast of London."

      GANGNES: Essex is 32-33 miles east of New Barnet; essentially the same area as Chelmsford (where the narrator's brother's friends live).

    3. Chalk Farm

      GANGNES: area of London on the north side of the Thames; north of the British Museum and on the way north to Haverstock Hill, where the narrator's brother goes next

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 228: "In the 1890s [Chalk Farm Station] was a busy station on the London and North-Western Railway (terminus Euston), at the junction of Adelaide Road and Haverstock Hill, immediately north of Primrose Hill in central London."

    1. part of Marylebone, and in the Westbourne Park district and St. Pancras, and westward and northward in Kilburn and St. John’s Wood and Hampstead, and eastward in Shoreditch and Highbury and Haggerston and Hoxton, and indeed through all the vastness of London from Ealing to East Ham

      GANGNES: As is evident by this point, the entirety of The War of the Worlds is specifically situated in actual locations in and around London. This rapid-fire naming of specific streets and neighborhoods can be overwhelming to readers who are not familiar with London, but to those who are (as many of Wells's readers would be), they underscore that this crisis is happening in a very real location. It also gives the narrative a breathless sense of momentum while maintaining the specificity of war reporting.

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 235: Westbourne Park is "a district in the London borough of Kensington, about two and a half miles from the city center."

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 233: St. Pancras is "a London borough north of the Thames, two miles form the city center. It is the site of Euston and St. Pancras [train] stations, main transit points for northern England and Scotland."

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 230: Kilburn is "a northwest London district between Hampstead (on the north) and Paddington (on the south), about three and a half miles northwest of central London."

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 233: St. John's Wood is "a middle-to-upper-class residential district northwest of Regent's Park, in north London."

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 229: Hampstead is "a hilly northeast London suburb, about five miles from the city center. From its highest point, on Hampstead Heath, it offers a magnificent vista of London."

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 233: Shoreditch is "a working-class district in east London, about a mile from the city center."

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 229: Haggerston is "a tough, working-class district in north London, north of Bethnal Green and east of Shoreditch."

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 230: Hoxton is "a tough, working-class district in north London, between Shoreditch and Haggerston, about two miles northeast of Charing Cross in central London."

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 229: Ealing is "a London borough in the county of Middlesex, some eight miles west of the city center."

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 229: East Ham is a "London district in the county of Essex, about seven miles east of the city center."

    2. the Strand

      GANGNES: The Strand (technically just "Strand") is a road just south of Trafalgar Square (see below) and north of the Thames; it runs along to the east and then becomes Fleet Street (see above). The Strand Magazine, which published the Sherlock Holmes stories, took its name from the fact that its first publishing house was located on Southampton Street, intersecting with Strand.

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 234: The Strand is "an important thoroughfare in central London. It runs parallel with the Thames (a very short distance away) and extends west from the Aldwych to Trafalgar Square. It is the location of fashionable stores, hotels, theatres, and office buildings."

    3. St. James’ Gazette

      From MCCONNELL: evening paper published 1880-1905

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 212: "Established in 1880, St. James's Gazette was a pro-Tory paper with features that also appealed to readers with intellectual literary interests."

      GANGNES: St. James's Gazette (Pearson's mistakenly leaves off the second "S") was a conservative daily broadsheet. It included social, political, and literary commentary, news, marriage announcements, stock market prices, and advertisements.

      Source:

    1. pillars of fire

      GANGNES: MCCONNELL is partially incorrect here; his citation is more thorough in that it addresses both the pillar of fire and pillar of smoke, but the appropriate chapter is Exodus 13, not Exodus 15. The most thorough and correct citation here would be a combination of the two--Exodus 13:21-22--which STOVER cites, though inexplicably as a note at the beginning of Chapter XII rather than at the textual reference.

      From MCCONNELL 173: "In Exodus 15:21-22, God sends a pillar of fire to guide the Israelites through the Sinai Desert by night, and a pillar of cloud to guide them by day."

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 209: "See Exodus 13:21: 'And the Lord went before them [to guide the Israelites through the Sinai] ... by night in a pillar of fire.'"

      From STOVER 114: quotes Exodus 13:21-22, then: "As the Lord guided the Israelites through the Sinai desert, so the Martians lead humanity through a wasteland of suffering. Ahead, leaving the old order behind, is the promise of world unity."

    2. a driver in the Artillery

      From MCCONNELL170: "That is, he drove the horse-drawn carriage of the heavy field guns."

      GANGNES: As other scholars have pointed out (e.g., HUGHES AND GEDULD 210), the marked difference in the role of the artilleryman in the Pearson's version as compared with the volume constitutes a significant change between the two versions. He is the "man" in the new chapter--"The Man on Putney Hill"--added for the volume, and he is a conduit through which the novel explores how humankind might grapple (or fail to grapple) with such a crisis as the Martian invasion. See Installment 9.

    3. the potteries

      From MCCONNELL 168: "A district in central England, also called the 'Five Towns,' famous for its pottery and china factories. The area was a favorite subject of Wells's friend, the novelist Arnold Bennett (1867-1931)."

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 208: The "five towns" MCCONNELL refers to are Stoke-on-Trent, Hanley, Burslem, Tunstall, and Longton. In 1888 Wells spent three months in the Potteries region.

      From DANAHAY 80: "an area of central England with a large number of china factories and their furnaces"

    4. I’m selling my bit of a pig.

      GANGNES: HUGHES AND GEDULD and STOVER both disagree with MCCONNELL about the meaning of this phrase.

      From MCCONNELL 159: "The landlord fears he may be selling (not buying) a 'pig in a poke.'"

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 207: "One nineteenth-century slang meaning of 'pig' was goods or property. Hence the sentence might simply mean: 'I'm selling my bit of property.' Another slang meaning of 'pig' was nag, donkey, or moke; while 'bit of' was an adjectival term that could be used variously to express affection for the subject it preceded. ... Another possibility is a real pig, i.e., the landlord is surprised--after asking a pig buyer to pay a pound and drive the pig home himself--to be offered two pounds with a promise moreover to return the pig. According to this, people are simply talking at cross-purposes, and the narrator then explains that he wants a dogcart, not a pig."

      From STOVER 98: "The landlord is puzzled by the narrator's haste to pay two pounds for his 'bit of pig' (=his valuable piece of property) coupled with a strong promise to return it."

    1. Kingston and Richmond

      GANGNES: towns/villages on the banks of the Thames, past Halliford toward central London; Richmond is farther away from Halliford than Kingston

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 230: "Usually called Kingston-on-Thames. A municipal borough in northeast Surrey, about nine miles southwest of central London."

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 233: "a borough of greater London, on the Thames in North Surrey, about eight miles west-southwest of central London"

    1. much as the parabolic mirror of a lighthouse projects a beam of light

      From STOVER 81: "The Heat-Ray is often taken as a prophecy of beam-focused lasers, but this is to miss the photographic metaphor Wells uses: 'the camera that fired the Heat-Ray,' 'the camera-like generator of the Heat-Ray.' The Martians' rayguns are in fact cameras in reverse, emitting light not receiving it, and they are in fact mounted on tripods as were the heavy old cameras of the day. What they see they zap. More, the photo-journalistic realism of the invasion recounted by the narrator recalls that of Roger Fenton, whose coverage of the Crimean War in 1855 is the first instance of a war photographer on the scene of action. His pictures were accompanied by sensational stories done by the famed William Howard Russell of the London Times, the first war correspondent in the modern sense. The narrator's account is modeled after both precedents, visually and journalistically."

      GANGNES: Stover here gestures (though not by name) to MCCONNELL (145), whose note is quoted by HUGHES AND GEDULD in their edition. MCCONNELL'S note reads: "Though the details of the heat-ray are vague, they do anticipate in some remarkable ways the development of the laser beam in the 1950s."

      That said, MCCONNELL and others rightly point to one of the numerous instances in which Wells's descriptions of technologies and events appear prescient. Indeed, many of the Martian technologies seem to anticipate military tech developed for use in the First and Second World Wars. For an analysis of The War of the Worlds and its early illustrations as they relate to early twentieth-century warfare, see Gangnes, "Wars of the Worlds: H.G. Wells’s Ekphrastic Style in Word and Image" in Art and Science in Word and Image: Exploration and Discovery (Brill, 2019), pp. 100-114.

  2. Apr 2020
    1. Perrotin, of the Nice Observatory

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 199: Nice Observatory was "France's most important nineteenth-century observatory." It was constructed in 1880 on Mt. Gros, northeast of Nice. It used a 30" refracting telescope.

      From MCCONNELL 126: Henri Joseph Anastase Perrotin (1845-1904) was a French astronomer who worked at the Nice Observatory 1880-1904.

      GANGNES: The 1898 edition adds a reference to Lick Observatory (in California), which the narrator says noticed the light before Perrotin did.

      More information:

    2. vanished bison and the dodo

      From MCCONNELL 125 and 151: The dodo was a large, flightless bird from Mauritius that was hunted into extinction by the seventeenth century. North American bison were also thought to be on the verge of extinction during this time. This is the first of two comparisons between the extinction of the dodo and the potential extinction of humans by the Martians; the second is in Chapter VII.

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 205: "Later, the very idea of such a bird [as the dodo] was ridiculed ... until skeletal remains came to light in 1863 and 1889."

      More information:

  3. May 2019
    1. destruction of Sennacherib

      From MCCONNELL 289: "'The Destruction of Sennacherib' is the title of one of the most famous poems of Lord Byron (1788-1824). In II Kings: 19 it is related how the Assyrian King Sennacherib brought a great army to war against the Israelites; but, thanks to the prayers of the Israelites, the Lord killed Sennacherib's whole army in a single night. The legend has an obvious relevance to the sudden, total, and unhoped-for obliteration of the Martian invaders."

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 224: "In a single night, in answer to the prayers of the Israelites, God destroyed the Assyrian army led by King Sennacherib (II Kings 19:35-37). This is the subject of Byron's celebrated poem 'the Destruction of Sennacherib'."

      From DANAHAY 182: "reference to II Kings: 19 in which an entire army is wiped out by God in one night"

    2. St. Paul’s

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 233: "Sir Christopher Wren's great cathedral. In London, east of Ludgate Hill, one-eighth of a mile north of the Thames at Blackfriars."

      GANGNES: St. Paul's Cathedral is a massive cathedral that traces its origins to the year 604. It lies in the Blackfriars region of London, near the London Stock Exchange, and is tall enough that it would have been visible to the narrator in most parts of the city.

      More information:

      St. Paul's Cathedral in the late nineteenth century:

    3. possible that it combines with argon

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 225: "This contradicts the earlier statement that the Black Smoke contained 'an unknown element giving a group of four lines in the blue spectrum'. ... Actually, argon, as an inert gas, cannot combine with another element to form a compound."

      GANGNES: The "blue spectrum" line is not in the serial. See Installment 6 note. HUGHES AND GEDULD (225) speculate that this kind of "carelessness in this final chapter probably reflects Wells's changing intentions regarding its publication." These "changing intentions" had much to do with Heinemann's insistence on the book being longer (HUGHES AND GEDULD 5-6).

    4. in conjunction

      From MCCONNELL 298: "At conjunction, the Earth and Mars are on opposite sides of the Sun."

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 225: "Mars and Earth are in (superior) conjunction, and farthest from each other, when they are lined up with the sun between them; they are in opposition, and closest to each other, when they are lined up with Earth between Mars and the sun."

      From DANAHAY 189: "It is far away from earth, but will be 'in opposition' again."

    1. Lilienthal soaring machines

      From MCCONNELL 249: "Otto Lilienthal (1848-1896), German engineer, was the chief developer of glider flight."

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 219: "German engineer Otto Lilienthal (1848-1896) was one of the pioneers of man-bearing gliders."

      From DANAHAY 148: "gliders invented by Otto Lilienthal (1849-1896), a German engineer"

    2. Woe unto this unfaithful city. Woe, woe! Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabitants of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet

      From MCCONNELL 258: "another jumble of Biblical allusions, mainly to the Book of Amos in the Old Testament and to Revelation in the New."

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 219: "Most of the passage is merely biblical-sounding rhetoric. 'I have been still too long' apparently echoes [Isaiah] 42:14: 'I have been still, and refrained myself.'"

    3. the City

      From MCCONNELL 283: "the area [of London] north of the Thames, from the Tower of London on the East to St. Paul's Cathedral on the west, enclosed within the original walls of London"

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 223 and 228: "On Sundays stores and businesses in the City of London are closed, and as the area is largely nonresidential, few people are to be seen." The City is "London's commercial and financial center, north of the Thames between the Temple (on the west) and Aldgate Pump (on the east). The Bank of England and the Royal Exchange are situated in The City."

      From DANAHAY 177: "the central part of London that contains many important financial and governmental buildings that would normally be closed on a Sunday"

    1. Pool of London

      From MCCONNELL 225: "the artificially enlarged shipping area of the Thames"

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 232: "Strictly speaking this refers to the stretch of the river Thames between London Bridge (on the west) and Cuckold's Point (on the east), near West India Dock. But more popularly it has come to signify the area of London below (i.e., east of) London Bridge. Fairly large sea-going vessels have access to the port of London up to this part of the Thames."

    2. On Monday night came the sixth star, and it fell at Wimbledon.

      GANGNES: Due to the shifting around of the narrative, this sentence is changed in the 1898 edition to: "Of the falling of the fifth cylinder I have presently to tell. The sixth star fell at Wimbledon." See text comparison page. HUGHES AND GEDULD (215) assert that this is "a slip"; the sixth and seventh cylinders "must fall on Tuesday and Wednesday nights." See below note on "Fifth Cylinder" that complicates matters further.

    3. Highgate and even it was said at Neasden

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 230: Highgate is "a district of north London, on a hill below Hampstead Heath. One of the most picturesque parts of London, it was (in the 1890s) and still is an area of many fine houses."

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 231: Neasden is "a northwest suburb of greater London, about six miles from the city center. It is now heavily residential but it was quite rural in the 1890s."

      GANGNES: Highgate is to the north and slightly east of Chalk Farm; Neasden is to the northwest of Chalk Farm.

    4. rained down darkness upon the land

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 216: echoes several biblical passages: 1) Genesis 19:24 ("Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven"); 2) Exodus 10:22 ("And the Lord said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even darkness which may be felt."); 3) Matthew 27:45 ("Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour.").

  4. Apr 2019
    1. Chief Justice

      GANGNES: Note that MCCONNELL disagrees with HUGHES AND GEDULD and STOVER here about the importance of this title.

      From MCCONNELL 220: "In England, the presiding judge of any court with several members."

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 215: "The nearest American equivalent [of "Chief Justice" here] (although there are many differences in the two offices) would be the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court."

      From STOVER: "The Lord Chief Justice of England is equivalent to the Chief Justice of the United States."

    2. sovereigns

      From MCCONNELL 220: gold coins worth two pounds, eighteen shillings (each)

      From DANAHAY 124: gold coins worth two pounds each ("the man has a lot of heavy money in his bag")

      GANGNES: Note that MCCONNELL's and DANAHAY's respective accounts of a sovereign's worth are not the same as one another or as HUGHES AND GEDULD's (and STOVER's) below.

    3. Southend and Shoeburyness

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 233: "Fully named Southend-on-Sea. A resort town in southeast Essex at the mouth of the Thames, thirty-three miles east of central London."

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 233: "Shoebury or Shoeburyness [is] a coastal town at the mouth of the Thames, just east of Southend and thirty-eight miles east of London."

      GANGNES: Southend is about 45 miles directly east of Edgware; Shoeburyness is just slightly east of that along the coast.

    4. Goths and Huns

      From MCCONNELL 224: "The Goths were a Teutonic people who invaded and settled in the Roman Empire between the third and fifth centuries A.D. The Huns, an Asiatic people, invaded and pillaged the Empire during the fifth century A.D."

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 215: "The Goths, a Germanic tribe, invaded Rome's Eastern and Western Empires during the third through the fifth century. The Huns, a nomadic Asian people, under their leader Atilla, invaded and ravaged much of Europe during the fifth century."

    1. Virginia Water or Guildford. They were busy making the necessary arrangements to alter the route of the Southampton and Portsmouth

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 234: Virginia Water is "a small town in northwest Surrey, eighteen miles west-southwest of central London. It is the site of an artificial lake from which the town takes its name."

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 229: Guildford is "a town in west-central Surrey, on the river Wey, about twenty-five miles southwest of central London."

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 223: Southampton is "a major seaport in south Hampshire, about seventy miles southwest of London."

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 232: Portsmouth is "a town and major naval base on Portsea Island, southeast Hampshire, sixty-three miles southwest of central London."

    2. That was how the Sunday Sun put it, and a clever, and remarkably prompt “hand-book” article in the Referee

      From MCCONNELL 193: "Two evening papers. The Sun was published 1893-1906, the Referee 1877-1928.

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 212: "The Sun, London's first popular halfpenny evening newspaper, was established in 1893 by T. P. O'Connor. A former London weekly, the Referee (founded 1877), was popular for its focus on humor, satire, sports, and theater."

      GANGNES: The Referee was a "Sunday sporting newspaper"; the Sun was a Tory newspaper.

      Source:

    3. Foundling Hospital

      From MCCONNELL 193: "One of the first hospitals and nurseries for abandoned or illegitimate children, the Foundling Hospital was founded in 1739 in the London district of Bloomsbury."

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 212: "The Founding Hospital, in Bloomsbury, London, near the British Museum, was established in 1739 by Thomas Coram. Despite its name, it was not a home for foundlings but a shelter for illegitimate children whose mothers were known."

    4. places on the South-Western network

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 212: "The various routes and stations of the (now defunct) South-Western Railway Company. Its terminus is Waterloo Station, London. The network had three main branches: the Northern, serving locations in the direction of Staines and Reading; the Central, serving locations in the direction of Bournemouth and Southampton; and the Southern, serving locations in the direction of Guildford, Epsom, and Leatherhead."

    5. between the South-Eastern and the South-Western stations

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 213: "Adjoining the Waterloo Station terminus of the South-Western Railway was another station belonging to the South-Eastern Railway (a separate company providing service to locations in the direction of Margate, Dover, Folkstone, and Hastings), whose terminus was Charing Cross. Normally there were barriers preventing passengers from moving directly from one railroad to another. These barriers had been lifted because of the emergency situation."

    6. Woolwich and Chatham

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 235: Woolwich is "a suburb of greater London, on the south bank of the Thames, about ten miles from central London. It is the site of the Royal Arsenal, Royal Military Academy, and Royal Artillery Barracks."

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 228: Chatham is "a town in north Kent and the site of an important naval base. It is on the river Medway, about thirty miles east-southeast of London."

    7. Fleet Street

      GANGNES: Fleet Street is a central London road on the north side of the Thames; it becomes (the) Strand (see below) to the west. During the Victorian period it was the home of most major London periodical publishers. It is associated with the story of Sweeney Todd: the "Demon Barber of Fleet Street," who appeared in the Victorian "penny dreadful" The String of Pearls: A Romance (1846-7).

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 229: Fleet Street is "a famous central London thoroughfare linking Ludgate Circus and The Strand. Until 1988 it was the home of many of London's most important newspapers. During Wells's lifetime 'Fleet Street' was a term synonymous with the British press."

      More information:

    8. still wet newspapers

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 213: "This is a slip. Until about 1870, paper was dampened to ensure a good printing impression and was then dried, but by the 1890s dry paper was used.... The anachronism disappears in the Heinemann edition (p. 127), which reads: 'type, so fresh that the paper was still wet.'"

      GANGNES: It is unclear what HUGHES AND GEDULD mean when they write that the "anachronism disappears in the Heinemann edition"; the Heinemann edition also includes this line on page 124.

    9. Barnes, Wimbledon, Richmond Park, Kew

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 227: Barnes is "a district of greater London south of the Thames, between Putney (on the east) and Mortlake (on the west), and about six miles west-southwest of central London."

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 235: Wimbledon is "a district of greater London, in north Surrey, about eight miles southwest of central London. Famous as the home of the All England Lawn Tennis Club--where international tennis tournaments are held annually. The sixth cylinder lands here."

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 233: Richmond Park is "a large recreation area in Richmond."

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 230: Kew is a "residential district in Richmond, northeast Surrey, on the Thames, about eight miles west of central London. It is the site of Kew Gardens (the Royal Botanical Gardens), with its famous Pagoda."

    10. Trafalgar Square

      GANGNES: A famous square/plaza in central London, situated just to the south of the National Gallery. It features an iconic tower surrounded by four large lions. See the City of London's official page on the Square.

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 234: "Central London's most famous concourse, dedicated to England's naval hero, Lord Nelson (and his victory at Trafalgar in 1805). In the center of the square there is a granite column, 145 feet tall, crowned with a statue of Nelson."

    11. Westminster to his apartments near Regent’s Park

      GANGNES: Regent's Park is a large public park in the northern part of central London. It lies north of the Thames, and it would likely take the narrator's brother a little under an hour to walk there from the south, depending on where in Westminster he is and where his apartment is situated. Wells's final home was near Regent's Park.

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 232: Regent's Park is "central London's largest park, containing the London Zoo and the Botanical Gardens. It extends north from Marylebone Road to Primrose Hill; and west from Albany to Grand Union Canal."

    12. at Staines, Hounslow, Ditton, Esher, Ockham

      GANGNES: These villages are all to the north or east of Woking and would be suitably arranged to face the crescent of Martian fighting machines.

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 230: Hounslow is "a suburban area of Middlesex, about ten miles west of central London."

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 231: Ockham is "a village in Surrey, about two and a half miles southeast of Woking and five miles northwest of Guildford."

    13. make a greater Moscow

      GANGNES: MCCONNELL and HUGHES AND GEDULD seem to be at odds here about the historical significance of this reference. STOVER (147) agrees with HUGHES AND GEDULD.

      From MCCONNELL 206: "From September 2 to October 7, 1812, the French Army of Napoleon occupied Moscow, burning and destroying more than three-fourths of the city. They were finally compelled to retreat, however, due to Russian guerrilla resistance and the impossibility of acquiring adequate provisions."

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 213: "To frustrate the Martians by destroying their major objective, London, as the Russians did to Napoleon in 1812 by setting fire to Moscow."

    14. earthly artillery

      GANGNES: HUGHES AND GEDULD (213) observe that this is likely a reference to Satan's "infernal artillery" in Milton's Paradise Lost, rather than a "celestial artillery" (STOVER 148 uses this term as well) as an inverse of "earthly artillery." In the context of a Martian invasion, however, "celestial" in opposition to "infernal" becomes complicated; in a narrative like Milton's, it would refer to Heaven, whereas in the context of Wells, it would be "the heavens," i.e., space. The Martians are far from benevolent angels; they are, perhaps, "avenging angels," or akin to infernal beings, despite being from a neighboring planet. In the context of this novel, might we imagine a new kind of artillery: an "alien artillery"?

    1. that a dispute had arisen at the Horse Guards

      GANGNES: STOVER corrects HUGHES AND GEDULD's annotation, though does not mention them specifically in the note, despite referencing them in other notes.

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 206: "Their notion is that there was an operational or tactical dispute--about how to deal with the situation--among the officers of the elite Horse Guards at the Horse Guard barracks (a building in central London opposite Whitehall). The Horse Guards are the cavalry brigade of the English Household troops (the third regiment of Horse Guards is known as the Royal Horse Guards)."

      From STOVER 94: Horse Guards here "is a shorthand reference to the British War Office, located on Horse Guards Parade near Downing Street in London. As Americans refer to the Department of Defense as 'The Pentagon' after its office building, so the British called its War Office 'the Horse Guards.' Not to be confused with the Household Calvary regiment The Royal Horse Guards, even then a tourist attraction when on parade."

    1. Inkerman barracks

      From MCCONNELL 154: "The Inkerman Barracks were named for the Battle of Inkerman, where in 1854, English and French troops defeated an attacking Prussian Army. Throughout the late nineteenth century, the armies of Europe were in the process of massive and ominous expansion and reorganization. But the British had a long-standing aversion to the idea of a standing army. Their reorganization, beginning in 1870, emphasized the localization of garrisons and short enlistment terms for civilian volunteers. In 1881 the infantry of the line was remodeled into two-battalion regiments with territorial names."

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 206: located ~2.5 miles southwest of the Horsell sand pits; ~2 miles west of Woking Station

    2. Times

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 205: Britain's most prestigious daily newspaper, est. 1788. By the time Wells was writing this novel its politics were mostly Liberal Unionist.

      GANGNES: The Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century Journalism lists the Times' date of establishment as 1785 rather than 1788; this discrepancy is due to the fact that it was originally titled the Daily Universal Register before its name change in 1788. In its early days it contained parliamentary reports, foreign news, and advertisements, but soon expanded its contents. Under the editorship of Thomas Barnes in the early 1800s it became a "radical force in the context of the liberalizing reforms of the early part of the [nineteenth] century. It continued to exert a radical influence under subsequent editors (including John Thaddeus Delane). The paper included reports from influential foreign correspondents who covered major European conflicts that were of interest to Britain. When Thomas Cherney became its editor in 1878 and was succeeded in 1884, the paper began to become more conservative and pro-Empire. It has changed ownership but is still published today.

      Source:

    3. argon

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 205: "a chemically inactive, odorless, colorless, gaseous element, no. 18 on the Periodic Table of the Elements. It had just been discovered and was in the news. Wells had written it up in 'The Newly Discovered Element' and 'The Protean Gas,' Saturday Review 79 (February 9 and May 4, 1895): 183-184, 576-577."

      GANGNES: The above articles from the Saturday Review are available in scanned facsimile here ("The Newly Discovered Element") and here ("The Protean Gas").

    4. dodo in the Mauritius

      From MCCONNELL 125 and 151: The dodo was a large, flightless bird from Mauritius that was hunted into extinction by the seventeenth century. This is the second of two comparisons between the extinction of the dodo and the potential extinction of humans by the Martians; the first is in Chapter I.

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 205: "Later, the very idea of such a bird [as the dodo] was ridiculed ... until skeletal remains came to light in 1863 and 1889."

    5. A boy from the town, trenching on Smith’s monopoly, was selling papers with the afternoon’s news.

      GANGNES: MCCONNELL is somewhat at odds with HUGHES AND GEDULD and STOVER here; H&G's identification of "Smith" as referring to the newsagent W. H. Smith is important to the print culture of Victorian Britain. I include MCCONNELL to show that critical/annotated editions are not infallible.

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 205: "Cutting into or 'poaching on' W. H. Smith's monopoly of selling newspapers inside the station. The chain of W. H. Smith to this day has the exclusive rights to selling newspapers, magazines, and books in m any British railroad stations."

      From MCCONNELL 153: "'Trenching' means encroaching. The newsboy is selling his papers at a station where Mr. Smith has a permanent newsstand."

      From STOVER 91: "Reference to W.H. Smith, whose chain of stationery stores to this day has the exclusive rights to sell newspapers, books, and magazines in British railway stations."

    6. a squadron of Hussars, two Maxims, and about four hundred men of the Cardigan regiment

      From MCCONNELL 154: "Hussars are light cavalry. The Maxim is the Maxim-Vickers, the first truly automatic machine gun, manufactured in the 1880s." The Cardigan regiment is from Cardiganshire: a county in West Wales.

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 206: "The Maxim gun, patented in 1884 by Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim, was an early form of machine gun. After some modification it was adopted by the British Army in 1889. In the field, Maxims were usually mounted on wheeled carriages. ... The Cardigan regiment was named for Cardiganshire, a western county of Wales located between Fishguard and Aberystwyth."

    7. north-west

      GANGNES: As HUGHES AND GEDULD point out (see below), this is a mistake that was not corrected in any of the novel's revisions. The error is somewhat jarring considering that Wells painstakingly situates the Martian invasion at extremely specific real locations. For more information on where this project situates the landing site, see the map page on The (De)collected War of the Worlds.

      HUGHES AND GEDULD 206: "This is a slip. The second cylinder falls to the northeast ... in or near the 'Byfleet' or 'Addlestone' Golf Links (really the New Zealand Golf Course, then the only course thereabouts and the one Wells must mean)."

    1. Cosmo Rowe (1877-1952)

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 217: In 1896 H. G. Wells and his agent attempted to get illustrations for The War of the Worlds from Cosmo Rowe, but only succeeded in securing two, both of which appeared in Pearson's and one in Cosmopolitan.

      GANGNES: Cosmo Rowe (William John Monkhouse Rowe, 1877-1952) was a British illustrator active during the late Victorian period and thereafter. He was a friend of Wells's and of designer William Morris (1834-1896).

      Rowe's illustrations for The War of the Worlds appear in the April 1897 (installment 1, first page) and May 1897 (frontispiece) issues of Pearson's Magazine; they are the only illustrations for the Pearson's War of the Worlds that were not done by Warwick Goble.

      Biographical source:

      More information:

    2. Daily Telegraph

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 200: The Daily Telegraph was established in 1855 and to this day is still one of Britain's foremost national newspapers.

      From MCCONNELL 127: The Daily Telegraph (founded 1855) catered to the middle class; it featured "flamboyant, often sensational journalism."

      GANGNES: Contrary to MCCONNELL, the Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century Journalism writes that the Daily Telegraph (1855-present; founded as the Daily Telegraph and Courier) originally catered to a "wealthy, educated readership" rather than the middle class. Though it became associated with Toryism in the twentieth century, its politics in the nineteenth century were first aligned with the Whigs, especially in its liberal attitude toward foreign policy. This changed somewhat in the 1870s when it supported Benjamin Disraeli, and the paper became more Orientalist under the editorship of Edwin Arnold. The Telegraph also promoted the arts.

      Source:

    3. Berkshire, Surrey, and Middlesex

      From DANAHAY 47: contiguous English counties

      GANGNES: Most of the novel takes place in Surrey and central London.

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 227: Berkshire is "a county of southern England bordered by Oxford and Buckingham (on the north), Gloucester (on the northwest), Hampshire (on the south), Surrey (on the southeast), and Wiltshire (on the west)."

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 234: Surrey is "a county of southern England bordered by Buckingham, Middlesex, and London (on the north), Berkshire (on the northwest), Kent (on the east), Hampshire (on the west), and Sussex (on the southwest). It is drained by the rivers Thames, Wey, and Mole."

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 231: Middlesex is "a major residential district that forms a sizeable part of London's metropolitan area. It borders Essex and London (on the east), Surrey (on the south), Hertford (on the north), and Buckingham (on the west)."

    4. three kingdoms

      GANGNES: You will see below that three different annotated editions of the novel give three different definitions of this reference, and they do not agree as to whether it is Wales or Ireland that is meant to be the "third kingdom."

      From HUGHES AND GEDULD 203: England, Ireland, and Scotland

      From STOVER 70: Of Great Britain

      From DANAHAY 52: England, Scotland, and Wales