Serial Number<br /> Each typewriter carries its own serial number. Lift the cover plate, and looking at the machine from the right side, you will note the serial number stamped directly behind the touch Selector on the left side of the machine. Record this number for use in ordering supplies and accessories or as identification in case of theft.

reply to u/KingCollectA at https://reddit.com/r/typewriters/comments/1rpr1ha/got_quite_lucky_finding_a_free_olympia_sg1_had_to/

Typically the SG1 has at least 3 serial numbers. Two matching ones on the main body (one hiding deep inside), and the third on the bottom portion of the carriage, which may or may not match the other two. (The carriages were meant to be easily swappable for machines with the same CPI/escapement sizes.) Removing the carriage will usually reveal the body serial number (typically a 7-XXXXXXXXX) format which you can compare with the grid of serial number ranges to see where yours fits in at https://typewriterdatabase.com/olympia.61.typewriter-serial-number-database.

I just got mine and have finished most of its servicing, though one or two small adjustments remain for it to be where I want it to be. Beyond this, it's been spectacular. See also: https://boffosocko.com/tag/Olympia-sg1/

There should be an option for this!

In the meantime, a workaround: How to get a serial comma: Use en or en-US instead of en-GB.

new Intl.ListFormat("en-US", { style: "long", type: "conjunction" })

Backspace does not erase: What are front left foot numbers on an Underwood 5 ?<br /> by [[RobertG]]<br /> accessed on 2026-01-17T19:25:41

https://accelareader.com/

Finding a Typewriter's Serial Number<br /> by [[Robert Messenger]]<br /> accessed on 2025-09-18T20:48:00

<br /> page from Wilf Beeching's Century of the Typewriter (1974 edition)

In an online course, the most important resources (like the syllabus or final exam review) are placed at the very top or very bottom of the resources list. Students are more likely to notice and remember them there. If those same links were buried in the middle of a long list of files, many students would overlook them. This shows how placing key items at the beginning or end takes advantage of the serial position effect.

reply to u/BudgetSprinkles3689 at https://www.reddit.com/r/typewriters/comments/1nkbw85/serial_number_location/

What is the purpose of a serial number? What does it do for you? There are serial numbers on things all around you; do you know where all of those are? The VIN number on your vehicle maybe?

People now are only using them to approximate manufacturing dates for fun, but they were generally only used by the factory or repair people to identify specific machines and/or tie issues after manufacture back to production line problems. Do they need to be easily accessed or visible for these purposes? The people who really need them generally know exactly where they are and how to find them.

Sometimes they're used to create inventories for owners or in cases of theft, but these generally aren't common uses that need high visibility. Because they can be removed or defaced, should they be put in easily findable and accessible places?

Generally they're stamped in at the factory during production on integral parts of the machine during assembly. As a result, they can often be hidden or covered up by parts (especially exterior panels and body styling) added later. If it's on an exterior, easy-to-remove part, what good is it?

If it helps, here's a diagram of some common locations:

https://www.reddit.com/r/typewriters/comments/1jc2hj5/what_does_the_x_mean_at_end_of_sc_serial_number/

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reply:

I've been looking at the typewriter database and have been able to discern the fact that the designator YY=88 seems to indicate that an FP had a Royal HH-like palm tabulator, where the serial number is of the form: FP[P,E,S]-XX-YY-#######, where XX is the platen length and YY is for other special features.

I can't help but wonder what the YY = 92 indicates on Martyn's machine.

https://reddit.com/r/typewriters/comments/1kg820b/just_bought_this_typewriter_for_10_at_a_charity/

For a second, I thought perhaps the "88" in the serial number was a designator for the palm tabulator, but one of the other two in the database doesn't have that option (visually), though the single picture (of 5853) looks like it may have broken off or been removed on that example: - https://typewriterdatabase.com/1960-royal-fp.1241.typewriter - https://typewriterdatabase.com/1961-royal-fp.5853.typewriter

If you upload some additional photos of yours to the database, perhaps we can puzzle out what the "88" designator means if it's not the palm tabulator functionality?

The E on FPE means "elite" or 12 characters per inch. The "13" indicates a 13 inch wide platen. The raw serial number seems to indicate it was made in 1960: https://typewriterdatabase.com/royal.72.typewriter-serial-number-database

for - adjacency - Indyweb dev - natural language - timebinding - parallel vs serial processing - comparison - spoken vs written language - what's also interesting is that spoken language is timebinding, sequential and our written language descended from that, - in spite of written language existing in 2D and 3D space, it inherited sequential flow, even though it does not have to - In this sense, legacy spoken language system constrains written language to be - serial - sequential and - timebound instead of - parallel - Read any written text and you will observe that the pattern is sequential - We constrain our syntax it to "flow" sequentially in 2D space, even though there is absolutely no other reason to constrain it to do so - This also reveals another implicit rule about language, that it assumes we can only focus our attention on one aspect of reality at a time

.

serial2

reply to u/DinoPup87 at https://new.reddit.com/r/typewriters/comments/1efzeor/adler_tippa_id/

It's a common misconception that the database lists all serial numbers.

You'll need to identify the make (and preferably the model) to search the database. Then you'll want to look at the serial numbers which your serial number appears between to be able to identify the year (or month if the data is granular enough) your machine was made. Reading the notes at the header of each page will give you details for how best to read and interpret the charts for each manufacturer. Notes and footnotes will provide you with additional details when available.

You can then compare your machine against others which individuals have photographed and uploaded to the database. Feel free to add your typewriter as an example by making an account of your own. Doing this is sure to help researches and other enthusiasts in the future. Don't forget photos of your manual, tools which came with your machine, your case, and original dated purchase receipts if you have them.

changing tips seems important?

serial dilution method. Why should you not pipette up and down? Cells killed due to pipetting stress?

1:15 violence, rape, murder, ... executive order to dissolve chaz and restore order.<br /> too bad, murder is exactly where my fun starts. but this world is ruled by militant pacifists,<br /> who only replace serial murder with overpopulation and mass murder every 100 years, aka "war".<br /> they only replace death with accumulated "debt"... idiots. idiocracy is here and now.

just legalize serial murder.<br /> but thats too simple, the idiots wanna feel smart...

overpopulation is just another intelligence test, and most people are failing, again.<br /> the problem is pacifism, the solution is permanent tribal warfare and legal serial murder.<br /> but first there is depopulation, killing 95% of today's population. fucking useless eaters... byye! no one will miss you.

Delete The Garbage. World Cure. RD9 Virus. The Brothers Grimsby 2016<br /> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGG0Nq3BwqQ

Thank you. Steve, for raising the alarm on this catastrophe! One minor comment. It should be QC'ed, not QA'ed. Quality control is done first. Quality Assurance (QA) comes after QC. QA is basically checking the calculations and the test results in the batch records. I worked in QC and QA for big pharma for decades. I tried to warn people in early 2021 that there's no way the quality control testing could be done at warp speed. Nobody listened to me despite my decades of experience in big pharma!

"warp speed" sounds fancy, plus "its an emergency, we have no time"...

it really was just an intelligence test, a global-scale exploit of trust in authorities. (and lets be honest, stupid people deserve to die.)

problem is, they (elites, military, industry) seem to go for actual forced vaccinations, which would be an escalation from psychological warfare to actual warfare against the 95% "useless eaters".

personally, i would prefer if they would globally legalize serial murder and assault rifles, then "we the people" would solve the overpopulation. (because: serial murder is the only alternative to mass murder.) but they are scared that we would also kill the wrong people (their servants because they are evil or stupid). (anyone crying about depopulation should suggest better solutions. denying overpopulation is just another failed intelligence test.)

https://typewriterdatabase.com/smithcorona.86.typewriter-serial-number-database

!- key insight: sequential phonetic language - temporal sequence of symbols constrains the field of possibilities from infinite to finite, focused idea - serial linguistic communication as a process of selection, attention and focus

https://github.com/SilentVoid13/Templater/discussions/377

https://www.reddit.com/r/ObsidianMD/comments/uv995v/bionic_reading_seems_great_but_patent_is_a_bummer/

This is reminiscent of Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP) reading method which became popular for a while a few years back, got squashed by patent claims, and then has slowly been coming back as the method was reported in the early 1970s.

Cornelius Roemer. (2022, February 12). Fantastic work by @UKHSA comparing serial intervals of BA.1, BA.2 and Delta as published in the most recent technical briefing. BA.2 seems to have even shorter serial interval than BA.1 This could help explain different relative growth rates of BA.2 vs BA.1 in different countries https://t.co/Gch94Ew8CX [Tweet]. @CorneliusRoemer. https://twitter.com/CorneliusRoemer/status/1492434232664375304

Lavezzo, E., Franchin, E., Ciavarella, C., Cuomo-Dannenburg, G., Barzon, L., Del Vecchio, C., Rossi, L., Manganelli, R., Loregian, A., Navarin, N., Abate, D., Sciro, M., Merigliano, S., De Canale, E., Vanuzzo, M. C., Besutti, V., Saluzzo, F., Onelia, F., Pacenti, M., … Crisanti, A. (2020). Suppression of a SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in the Italian municipality of Vo’. Nature, 1–1. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2488-1

Barnby, J. M., Bell, V., Mehta, M., & Moutoussis, M. (2020, April 17). Reduction in social learning and policy uncertainty about intentional social threat underlies paranoia: evidence from modelling a modified serial dictator game. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/jvx5y

This installment comprises the text that is roughly comparable to Book I ("The Coming of the Martians"), part of Chapter XV through the beginning of XVII of the 1898 collected edition and subsequent versions.

This is the cover of the September 1897 issue of Pearson's Magazine:

GANGNES: Cut from the 1898 version. Likely the extent to which the break between Chapters XVI and XVII changed the flow of the narrative made this installment ending redundant. It works very effectively in the serial as a suspense-building hint at the next part of the narrative, but is perhaps not necessary in a collected volume. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: In the Pearson's Chapter XIV, the number of Londoners is written as "five million"; it is correct here, and Chapter XIV was changed in the volume so that both would read "six million."

GANGNES: The anti-Semitism embodied in this figure is clear even when "Jew" is changed to "man" in the 1898 volume and subsequent editions (see the text comparison page). As STOVER (111) observes, the caricature of a greedy "eagle-faced man" would have been recognizable to Victorian readers even with the explicit word "Jew" removed.

GANGNES: The 1898 volume replaces this sentence with "Now at the time we could not understand these things, but later I was to learn the meaning of these ominous kopjes that gathered in the twilight." The fact that Chapter XV is not divided in the volume allows for a smoother transition. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: The section beginning here and ending with "...across the pavement" is either removed from the 1898 volume or repurposed and moved until after an additional chapter--"The Man on Putney Hill"--is inserted. There is a lengthier note about "The Man on Putney Hill" at the beginning of Installment 9. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: The text beginning with "I know it is..." and ending with "But I wander from my subject" several paragraphs later was cut from the 1898 volume. See text comparison page.

STOVER argues, "The reason Wells cut this passage from the book version is probably aesthetic. He did not wish to give away too much, if he were to keep with the novel's deepest artistic ambiguity" (188). However, this assessment risks oversimplifying an extensive edit. Apart from "giving away too much"--offering a lot of information that the narrator would not find out until much later and therefore informing the reader of details about the Martians relatively early--this passage can come off as "preachy" or overly philosophical in a way that Wells may have later decided he disliked.

This omitted section tells us a great deal not only about the Martians' grisly study of a live human subject, but also about the narrator's ideologies. Looking back on his first glimpses of the Martians from a later time of safety, the narrator offers a kind of persuasive philosophical essay (he is, by trade, a professional writer of similar essays) on the ethical and moral lessons to be gleaned, from the Martians' behavior, about humans' treatment of other animals.

While the passage may "wander from [the narrator's] subject," it offers an intriguing dissonance between the narrator's terror of being killed by the Martians--to the point where he sacrifices others' lives--and his cool, high-minded defense of their consumption of human beings.

In the end, Wells retains only the first sentence of this passage in the volume to speak very briefly to the narrator's philosophical thoughts on the matter. What we gain in narrative flow and "artistic ambiguity" we may lose in characterization.

GANGNES: The first six paragraphs of Chapter XIX were cut from the text when it was collected as a volume, and replaced with a similar amount of text at the beginning of what became Book II, Chapter II of the 1898 volume. See text comparison page.

The replacement of this section relates to Wells's reorganization of the narrative toward the end of the novel. Certain devices, such as the foreshadowing in sentences like "The dreadful thing that happened at last between myself and the curate, and how in the end I escaped from that house, I will defer from telling in this chapter," are not as necessary in a volume; in fact, they can disrupt narrative flow. Foreshadowing helps keep a serial reader interested in an installment of a story and interested in buying the next one when it comes out.

GANGNES: A great deal of text here was shifted around and significantly revised for the volume. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: This line is cut from the 1898 version because it is no longer true. As HUGHES AND GEDULD (210) and others point out, the artilleryman becomes a major figure in the volume, featured in Chapter 7 of Book II, "The Man on Putney Hill." See text comparison page, the earlier note about the artilleryman on this page, and the note about the artilleryman on the Installment 3 page.

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.

GANGNES: This section is replaced in the 1898 edition with the following passage after "...rules in his body?":

"I began to compare the things to human machines, to ask myself for the first time in my life how an ironclad or a steam engine would seem to an intelligent lower animal."

This revision is particularly interesting because Wells removed language referring to steam engines and other human technologies in the narrator's description of the fighting machines in the previous chapter (beginning "And this Thing!").

In this site's page on "The Terrible Trades of Sheffield," a connection is drawn between these edits and Wells's opinion of Warwick Goble's illustrations, which were too close to human technologies. In the revision, then, Wells reframes human technologies as part of an analogy; Martian technology is beyond human technology to so extreme a degree as to be incomprehensible to humans.

GANGNES: This is the policeman who is depicted running from the Heat Ray in both of Cosmo Rowe's illustrations (the Installment 1 header image and the Installment 2 frontispiece).

GANGNES: Changed to "Knaphill" in the 1898 edition and subsequent versions.

From HUGHES AND GEDULD 204 and 230: Knaphill is ~3 miles due west from Horsell Common. The distances might seem exaggerated to today's readers, but they are presented from a pedestrian's perspective.

GANGNES: Summaries like these are common in serialized fiction, as they are in comics and in television series--a kind of "previously on" bit of information. This not only reminds readers of what happened in the previous installment (which in this case would have been released a month prior), but also allows new readers to jump in at a later issue if they missed out. This was especially important in cases where an issue of a popular magazine or newspaper might have been sold out.

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:

• "Perrotin, Henri Joseph Anastase" on Encyclopedia.com
• Official Côte d’Azur Observatory (Nice Observatory) site
• Official Lick Observatory site

This installment comprises the text that is roughly comparable to Book II, Chapter VIII ("Dead London") through Chapter X ("The Epilogue") of the 1898 collected edition and subsequent versions. "The Man on Putney Hill"--Book II, Chapter VII of the volume--did not appear in the Pearson's version.

This is the cover of the December 1897 issue of Pearson's Magazine: the 1897 Double Christmas Number:

This installment comprises the text that is roughly comparable to Book II, Chapter II ("What We Saw from the Ruined House") through Chapter VI ("The Work of Fifteen Days") of the 1898 collected edition and subsequent versions.

This is the cover of the November 1897 issue of Pearson's Magazine:

GANGNES: The following sentence is added here to the 1898 volume: "And while I am engaged in this description, I may add in this place certain further details which, although they were not all evident to us at the time, will enable the reader who is unacquainted with them to form a clearer picture of these offensive creatures." Wells makes a clearer distinction in the collected volume between his narrator's thoughts and feelings during the time of the narrative, and those during the writing of the narrative. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: There are many small changes made to the descriptions of the Martians for the collected volume (see text comparison page). A seemingly nitpicky one is that every instance of a present-tense state of being (e.g., "differs," "do," "have," etc.) is past-tense in the volume. This is perhaps not a material difference, but it does affect the reader's understanding of whether the Martians might still be around at the end of the narrative, and/or if human beings can no longer consider Martians to be a thing of the past even if they defeat them; the Martians still exist on other planets.

GANGNES: The 1898 version of the novel adds two paragraphs here about the thoughts of "a certain speculative writer of quasi-scientific repute" on Martian technology and anatomy. This is commonly thought to be a cheeky reference to Wells himself. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: This line is replaced in the 1898 volume with "A hundred diseases, all the fevers and contagions of human life, consumption, cancers, tumours and such morbidities, never enter the scheme of their life." This constitutes a subtle foreshadowing about the ultimate fate of the Martians and is perhaps a bit more elegantly constructed than the serial's sentence.

GANGNES: A new paragraph is added here for the 1898 volume. See text comparison page. This paragraph constitutes one of the most significant revisions to the novel in terms of the text's relationship with Pearson's and illustration. The new paragraph covertly criticizes Warwick Goble's illustrations of the novel:

"I recall particularly the illustration of one of the first pamphlets to give a consecutive account of the war. The artist had evidently made a hasty study of one of the Fighting Machines, and there his knowledge ended. He presented them as tilted, stiff tripods, without either flexibility or subtlety, and with an altogether misleading monotony of effect. The pamphlet containing these renderings had a considerable vogue, and I mention them here simply to warn the reader against the impression they may have created. They were no more like the Martians I saw in action than a Dutch doll is like a human being. To my mind, the pamphlet would have been much better without them."

Wells's friend English writer Arnold Bennett noticed the new passage and wrote to Wells: “I gathered … that you were not exactly enchanted with Warwick Goble’s efforts.” Wells admitted the intentional critique: Goble “made people think my tale was a wearisome repetition of kettles on camera stands. I really don’t think he put a fair quantity of brain into that enterprise or I wouldn’t have slanged him in the book.”

References:

• Wells, H. G. A Critical Edition of The War of the Worlds: H. G. Wells’s Scientific Romance, with Introduction and Notes by David Y. Hughes and Harry M. Geduld. Edited by Harry M. Geduld. Indiana UP, 1993, pp. 216-217.

GANGNES: The text from this point through the end of the chapter was cut from the 1898 volume and replaced by a more objective rumination on the differences between human and Martian technology--including the absence of the wheel in Martian machines--and more observations about the specifics of Martian anatomy and abilities. Instead of ending on the Martians' killing of a young boy for food, the chapter concludes with the curate drawing the narrator's attention back to him. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: The 1898 volume is revised and reorganized here in such a way that there is another chapter--"The Days of Imprisonment"--before "The Death of the Curate." Between the first two paragraphs of this chapter in the serial and the third one ("After the eighth day..."), there is a massive amount of text added and shifted around to restructure the narrator's account of the time he and the curate spent in the ruined house before the curate died. These changes alter the pacing significantly. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: The Martian tentacle's search for the narrator was revised and expanded somewhat for the 1898 volume. The changes slow the pacing down and increase tension. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: This paragraph was revised and expanded somewhat to include evidence of remorse from the narrator over his role in the curate's death (see text comparison page):

"During these days, in a rambling, inconclusive way, I thought much of the curate and of the manner of his death.

On the thirteenth day I drank some more water, and dozed and thought disjointedly of eating and of vague impossible plans of escape. Whenever I dozed I dreamt of horrible phantasms, of the death of the curate, or of sumptuous dinners; but, asleep or awake, I felt a keen pain that urged me to drink again and again. The light that came into the scullery was no longer grey, but red. To my disordered imagination it seemed the colour of blood."

We get no such indication that the narrator regrets sacrificing the curate's life to save his own in the serial.

GANGNES: The 1898 version adds the following small paragraph between these two sentences (see text comparison page):

"Slowly I thrust myself out through the red weed, and stood upon the mound of rubble. I could see in any direction save behind me, to the north, and neither Martians nor sign of Martians were to be seen. The pit dropped sheerly from my feet, but a little way along the rubbish afforded a practicable slope to the summit of the ruins. My chance of escape had come. I began to tremble."

GANGNES: There is no paragraph here in the 1898 volume; it was moved to after "...gently swaying" (with a new sentence to end it: "And oh! the sweetness of the air!") and renamed, "The Work of Fifteen Days." See text comparison page.

GANGNES: This paragraph is revised and expanded into a lengthy passage wherein the narrator grapples with the changes in the countryside around him after finally escaping from the ruined house. He is reckless and dazed for a few moments before he gets a hold of himself again and begins to search for food. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: This line was cut from the 1898 volume. It is the kind of text marker designed to keep serial audiences engaged in the narrative and clamoring to buy the next installment, but in a volume it may come off as unnecessary foreshadowing that distracts from the flow of the narrative. Wells has substituted another form of foreshadowing that is simultaneously subtler and more detailed. The following sentence was added just before this point (between "upon it." and "The fronds"): "Now by the action of natural selection, all terrestrial plants have acquired a resisting power against bacterial diseases—they never succumb without a severe struggle, but the red weed rotted like a thing already dead." See text comparison page.

GANGNES: The 1898 volume adds a few sentences here wherein the narrator again comments on the landscape through which he is traveling alone (see text comparison page):

"Here the scenery changed from the strange and unfamiliar to the wreckage of the familiar: patches of ground exhibited the devastation of a cyclone, and in a few score yards I would come upon perfectly undisturbed spaces, houses with their blinds trimly drawn and doors closed, as if they had been left for a day by the owners, or as if their inhabitants slept within. The red weed was less abundant; the tall trees along the lane were free from the red creeper."

The addition enhances the desolate mood of the narrator's journey and contributes to the visual writing style for which Wells is so often lauded.

GANGNES: From this point to the end of the paragraph was cut for the 1898 edition. As the notes on Installment 6 indicate, a significant portion of the end of Installment 6 was moved to the next chapter, changing the flow and creation of suspense as the narrative moves toward what would become the split between Books I and II. See text comparison page.

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.

GANGNES: In the 1898 edition, this is the point where the novel is split into two books. Book II is called "Earth Under the Martians," and this chapter becomes Chapter I of Book II: "Under Foot."

GANGNES: In the 1898 edition, nearly the entirety of the text from this point through "...heels of fact" (the beginning of page 454) is cut and replaced by a new paragraph and a half. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: This section is part of a major cut to the chapter that occurred when the novel was split into two parts (as discussed above). In the serialized version of the text, the novel's narrator spends much more time reflecting on his own feelings and responses, as well as the storytelling process, than in the volume. Here Wells makes explicitly clear the narrator's unreliability (which is implicit in other parts of the text). Moreover, there is a strange critique of "romanticized" fiction that sets fiction up against this narrator's journalistic account of the invasion (which, of course, is fiction as well). The narrator's appeals to authority here may come off as prematurely defensive and disruptive of the narrative flow. It seems that Wells ultimately decided they would not be a strong start to Book II of the volume. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: Cut in the 1898 version and replaced by a longer section. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: This section was significantly revised for the 1898 version. Most notably, in the Pearson's version Twickenham is deserted, whereas in the 1898 version the narrator and curate cross paths with several other people who are fleeing, and there is more damage in the town. This creates quite a different effect: the serial evokes the haunting quality of a ghost town; the volume expresses an environment of urgency and destruction. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: The 1898 volume adds this sentence: "Save that an unknown element giving a group of four lines in the blue of the spectrum is concerned, we are all still entirely ignorant of the nature of this substance." See text comparison page. HUGHES AND GEDULD (214) note that the addition creates an inconsistency; the epilogue describes "three lines in the green."

GANGNES: Should be "Street Cobham." This is an error that was likely made in the typesetting process for Pearson's, as it does not appear in other versions. The mix-up is understandable, especially as the narrator has spoken so often of Chobham and Chobham Road.

HUGHES AND GEDULD (119) point out that Street Chobham (with an H) is "well west of the Martians' line of march."

GANGNES: Cut from the 1898 volume; perhaps it was thought to be redundant. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: The text was significantly revised for the 1898 volume from this point through "...in time to save them"; Wells seems to have spent a great deal of effort grappling with how to describe the havoc and conflict of the flight from London. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: Corrected to "companion" in 1898 volume. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: Cut from the 1898 volume. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: This text was cut, with the rest of the last sentence, from the 1898 volume, and replaced with a few new sentences that streamline the scene. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: The next two paragraphs are cut from the 1898 volume, with smaller sentences and fragments added and cut through the end of page 355. Again Wells takes great care over the flow of this scene. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: In the 1898 volume, this section is moved down and inserted before "But varied as its composition was..." See text comparison page.

GANGNES: Cut from the 1898 volume. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: The 1898 volume changes this to "his lower limbs lay limp and dead"; this clarifies why the man is able to grasp for his money even though his back is broken. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: From this point through the end of the installment, very significant changes were made between the serialized version and the 1898 volume. Apart from a large cut (see below), the final four large paragraphs were moved to the beginning of the next chapter (XVII). This difference changes the narrative's pacing and moments of suspense. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: Cut from the 1898 volume; perhaps it was thought to be redundant, especially with the change in chapter division. See note above and text comparison page.

This installment comprises the text that is roughly comparable to Book I ("The Coming of the Martians"), Chapter XIV and part of XV of the 1898 collected edition and subsequent versions.

This is the cover of the August 1897 issue of Pearson's Magazine:

GANGNES: The 1898 edition changes "Sutton" to "Epsom."

From MCCONNELL 198: "The town of Epsom, south of London, is the annual site of the Derby."

From HUGHES AND GEDULD 213: "teeming with people"; see Frith's painting "Derby Day" (1856-58) (below)

GANGNES: In the serialized version of the novel, Chapter V was divided in half between installments 5 and 6. This imposed a kind of "false cliffhanger" that was often seen in Victorian serialized fiction because periodicals had a set number of pages per issue (sometimes with a little wiggle room) to devote to an installment of a serialized work.

This "false cliffhanger" would have affected a Victorian reader's sense of pacing and the feeling of suspense caused by the abrupt end of the installment in the middle of an intense battle. This a "to be continued" moment that was created by serialization rather than an author's intended pacing.

This installment comprises the text that is roughly comparable to Book I ("The Coming of the Martians"), Chapters XII-XIII of the 1898 collected edition and subsequent versions.

This is the cover of the July 1897 issue of Pearson's Magazine:

GANGNES: In the 1898 edition of the novel, this phrasing is changed and expanded in a way that begins to flesh out the artilleryman as a character. In the serialized version, we never see the artilleryman again after this installment, but he returns and serves a large role in the 1898 edition. See text comparison page and another note on the artilleryman farther down this page.

GANGNES: The scene beginning at this point and running through the end of the chapter was significantly revised with dozens of small rewordings. In addition to deemphasizing some of the narrator's personal emotions, as Wells does in other parts of the novel, these changes show Wells grappling with exactly how to describe the appearance and movement of the Martian fighting machines and the nigh-cinematic scene of destruction that makes this novel highly suited to visual adaptation. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: Cut from the 1898 version. This is another instance of removing the narrator's commentary on his own feelings and reactions, especially those that seem weak or cowardly. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: From this point through the end of the installment is one of the most heavily reworked scenes in the novel. There are significant cuts, additions, rearrangings, and rephrasings. The revisions alter the curate's mood and the narrator's emotional and intellectual responses to the curate's outburst. Through these edits, Wells seems to be grappling with how to most effectively present a critique of religion. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: Reference to Proverbs 9:10: "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding." This line is part of the cuts made to this installment between the serialized version and the volume. See text comparison page.

This installment comprises the text that is roughly comparable to Book I ("The Coming of the Martians"), Chapters IX-XI of the 1898 collected edition and subsequent versions.

This is the cover of the June 1897 issue of Pearson's Magazine:

GANGNES: In the 1898 edition, this sentence (slightly edited) is preceded by, "It hardly seemed a fair fight to me at the time." In the revised version we are offered this bit of foreshadowing and characterization without a strong emotional component. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: Cut from the 1898 volume. Another removal of the narrator's emotions. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: Cut from the 1898 volume. Another removal of the narrator's emotional responses to the invasion. The "loss" here is part of the novel's discussion of photography and photographic war journalism specifically. The chapter ends (after "that quivering tumult") with an additional sentence: "I overtook and passed the doctor between Woking and Send." See text comparison page.

GANGNES: The 1898 volume adds "I can best express my state of mind by saying that" to the beginning of this sentence. The change softens the impact of the narrator's emotions by adding an analytical "stepping back" from his feelings at the time. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: Cut from the 1898 volume. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: This passage through the next page is the most striking and detailed description of the Martian fighting machines in the novel. Despite the degree of detail offered by the narrator, the machines' physical appearance has been depicted quite differently across various illustrations. Wells made his dislike of Goble's illustrations clear in a passage he added to what would become Book II, Chapter II of the 1898 volume. See Installment 8. He also cut and changed some phrasing to deemphasize comparisons to human technologies. See text comparison page.

From DANAHAY 76: in its path

GANGNES: In the 1898 edition, "wallowing" is removed.

GANGNES: The 1898 edition adds "That was the impression those instant flashes gave" before this sentence. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: The 1898 volume changes this to simply "imagine it a great body of machinery on a tripod stand." This seems likely to be part of Wells's negative response to Warwick Goble's depictions of the Martian fighting machines, which resembled known human technology more than Wells would have liked. See text comparison page, note on "The Terrible Trades of Sheffield" below, and the additional passage in what would eventually become Book II, Chapter 2 in the 1898 volume.

GANGNES: Cut from the 1898 volume. Perhaps the sentence was thought to be redundant or that it revealed a piece of information the narrator could not have known at the time. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: The 1898 volume inserts "And in an instant it was gone." and a paragraph break before this sentence. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: The 1898 volume replaces this phrase with "in the rain and darkness"; another instance of deemphasizing the narrator's emotions in favor of a more "objective" perspective. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: Cut from the 1898 volume. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: Cut from the 1898 volume. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: Cut from the 1898 volume. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: Cut from the 1898 volume. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: Cut from the 1898 volume. Another clear instance of removing references to the narrator's emotional and physical responses to his predicament. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: This is cut from the 1898 volume and a paragraph break is added to separate out the final sentence. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: This should be Cobham, which was confused with Chobham--a village to the northwest of Woking mentioned several times in the novel. Cobham is five miles to the east and slightly north of Woking on the way from Woking (via Byfleet) to Leatherhead. It seems that either Wells or the editors of Pearson's mistakenly wrote "Street Chobham" instead of "Street Cobham"; the error is corrected in the 1898 version.

GANGNES: Cut from the 1898 volume. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: Cut from the 1898 volume. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: Cut from the 1898 volume. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: The 1898 volume replaces this with "complicated metallic case, about which green flashes scintillated" and changes "funnel" to "eye." Again we "lose" language about photography, despite the fact that the novel as a whole retains such references in other areas. See text comparison page.

This installment comprises the text that is roughly comparable to Book I ("The Coming of the Martians"), Chapters V-VIII of the 1898 collected edition and subsequent versions.

This is the cover of the May 1897 issue of Pearson's Magazine:

GANGNES: Cut from the 1898 volume. This is another instance (see Installment 1) where a comment about the narrator's feelings has been removed. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: The differences between Cosmo Rowe's illustrations and Warwick Goble's exemplify the difficulties presented for illustrators by invisibility or near-invisibility. Different illustrators have chosen to depict the heat ray in different ways that make clear the cause-and-effect relationship of the ray being pointed and its targets being lit on fire. Usually this requires a visual representation, even though the ray is described as invisible.

GANGNES: This sentence was cut from the 1898 volume. It begins a section of the text--from here through the end of Chapter V, that was heavily revised in the transition from serialized version to volume. Again, most of these revisions deemphasize the emotional (and sometimes physical) responses of the narrator to the Martians. This takes the focus of Wells's depictions of the Martians off of the narrator and perhaps allows the reader to form their own emotional response with minimal mediation from the narrator. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: Cut from the 1898 volume. This is another instance of deemphasizing the narrator's emotional and physical responses to the Martians; the replacement sentence from the volume reads: "All about me gathered the invisible terrors of the Martians; that pitiless sword of heat seemed whirling to and fro, flourishing overhead before it descended and smote me out of life." See text comparison page.

GANGNES: Cut from the 1898 volume. This is yet another instance where a comment about the narrator's feelings has been removed. There are a few smaller edits in the next few paragraphs that have a similar effect. Some refer to the narrator's wife's emotional responses as well. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: In the 1898 volume, this sentence is replaced with simply, "This was the second cylinder." The change of a chapter's end in this way produces quite a different effect. The serialized sentence heightens the drama and serves as a very effective cliffhanger by evoking an image of destruction. The shorter, more straightforward chapter end sentence from the 1898 volume is freed from the pressure of contributing to a cliffhanger. It has a more objective, informative, journalistic tone while still promising action in the next chapter. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: Daily News here is changed to Daily Chronicle in the 1898 volume and subsequent editions. The discrepancy between Daily News in the serialized version and Daily Chronicle in the volume could be due to an error on Wells's part that was corrected for the 1898 edition.

The Daily News (1846-1912) was first advertised as a "Morning Newspaper of Liberal Politics and thorough Independence," set up as a rival to the Morning Chronicle. It was edited by Charles Dickens at its launch. The paper "advocated reform in social, political, and economic legislation, fought for a Free Press in supporting the repeal of the Stamp Act, campaigned for impartial dealings with the natives of India and supported Irish Home Rule." It was known for its detailed war reporting, which boosted its circulation.

The Daily Chronicle was a later name (beginning in 1877) of the Clerkenwell News (1855-1930). The paper was "liberal and radical," with a daily column entitled "The Labour Movement" featured in the 1890s. Interestingly, the paper eventually merged with the Daily News (becoming the News Chronicle), but not until 1930--after even the 1925 edition of The War of the Worlds, let alone the 1898 edition.

Source:

• Brake, Laurel, and Marysa Demoor, editors. Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century Journalism in Great Britain and Ireland. Academia Press and The British Library, 2009, p. 128 and 158.

This installment comprises the text that is roughly comparable to Book I ("The Coming of the Martians"), Chapters I-IV of the 1898 collected edition and subsequent versions.

This is the cover of the April 1897 issue of Pearson's Magazine:

GANGNES: Cut from the 1898 volume. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: Cut from the 1898 volume. See text comparison page.

GANGNES: The 1898 volume removes this address to the reader and its reference to the Natural History museum. See text comparison page. Here is the revised sentence: "Those who have never seen a living Martian can scarcely imagine the strange horror of its appearance." In general, appeals to the reader (i.e., usage of "you" or similar) are minimized in the volume. Such revisions may aid in making the novel's tone more journalistic.

GANGNES: Cut from the 1898 volume. See text comparison page. This is one of many instances in which the volume omits the narrator's references to his own feelings, especially somewhat cowardly/frightened reactions. Like appeals to the reader, personal responses could undermine the journalistic tone that characterizes most of the novel.