The War of the Worlds

Chapter-by-chapter summary

Spoiler warning: this section covers the whole plot, including the ending.

The novel has 27 short chapters in two books. They are grouped here into eight parts.

Part 1: Falling Stars on Horsell Common (Book I, Chapters 1–4)

The narrator, a writer living in Woking, hears from the astronomer Ogilvy that strange flashes have been seen on Mars. Days later a shooting star falls on nearby Horsell Common and turns out to be a metal cylinder. Crowds gather to stare. Slowly the lid unscrews, and a grey, bear-sized creature with huge dark eyes and a tentacled mouth drags itself out, clearly struggling under Earth's gravity. The onlookers back away in fear. This part matters because Wells makes first contact slow, curious and almost ordinary, which makes the violence that follows land harder.

Part 2: The Heat-Ray (Book I, Chapters 5–9)

A small group led by Ogilvy and carrying a white flag walks toward the pit to greet the visitors. The Martians answer with the Heat-Ray, an invisible beam that sets people, trees and houses on fire. Ogilvy is among the dead. The narrator runs home while soldiers surround the common, sure that they have the creatures trapped. They are wrong: the Martians climb out in tall three-legged fighting machines, and more cylinders keep falling. It matters because the first act of peace is met with slaughter, and the authorities still do not grasp the danger.

Part 3: The Storm and the Battle on the Thames (Book I, Chapters 10–12)

After taking his wife to safety at Leatherhead, the narrator drives back home. That night a violent storm breaks, and in the flashes of lightning he watches the machines stride across Surrey. The next day he heads for the Thames at Weybridge and Shepperton. There the army fights back and brings down one machine, but the others answer with the Heat-Ray and clouds of poisonous black smoke, and the towns burn. The narrator survives by hiding in the river and under a boat. The lesson is that courage and artillery can hurt the Martians but cannot stop them.

Part 4: The Curate and the News from London (Book I, Chapters 13–15)

By the river the narrator falls in with a curate, a young clergyman whose faith turns into panic and who soon becomes a burden rather than a help. The story then switches to the narrator's younger brother, a medical student in London. He reads vague, calm newspaper reports while the Martians use black smoke to break the defences around the capital. Wells shows how a modern city hears about disaster: late, in pieces, and in a tone far calmer than the facts deserve.

Part 5: The Exodus and the Thunder Child (Book I, Chapters 16–17)

The brother is swept up in the flight of hundreds of thousands of Londoners on foot and in carts. On the way he helps two women, and the three reach the Essex coast and board a steamer packed with refugees. Then the ironclad Thunder Child charges the Martian machines to protect the ships, destroys two of them, and is destroyed by the Heat-Ray. The steamer slips away to sea. It is the book's rare moment of heroism, and Wells keeps it short and sad rather than triumphant.

Part 6: The Ruined House (Book II, Chapters 1–4)

Book II returns to the narrator, who is trapped with the curate in a ruined house beside a Martian landing pit. Through a gap in the wall he watches the invaders assemble machines and feed on the fresh blood of captured people. Days pass in hunger and fear. The curate loses his grip, starts shouting, and the narrator knocks him down to keep him quiet. A tentacle then reaches in and drags the curate away. Wells shows how faith and reason can crack under pressure, and the Martians' cold intelligence stands out sharply beside it.

Part 7: The Red Weed and Putney Hill (Book II, Chapters 5–7)

After about fifteen days the Martians move away and the narrator creeps out. The landscape has changed: a red plant brought from Mars is spreading along rivers and fields, and the towns are silent. On Putney Hill he meets an artilleryman who describes a grand plan to build a hidden human society underground and one day take the machines back. The narrator soon sees that the man prefers dreaming to digging, and leaves him, disappointed. The part captures how people in despair swing between practical sense and fantasy.

Part 8: Dead London and the Epilogue (Book II, Chapters 8–10)

Ready to give up, the narrator walks into London. The streets are empty, and the only sound is a Martian cry that repeats “ulla, ulla.” Following it, he finds the fighting machines standing still and the Martians dead, killed by ordinary disease bacteria that their bodies had never met. Humanity is saved by the smallest living things. He makes his way home and is reunited with his wife, who survived. In the epilogue he reflects on how the event changed human thinking and on the uneasy possibility of another attack.

Characters

The narrator

An unnamed writer who lives near Woking and takes an interest in science and philosophy. He is calm, observant and honest about his own fear. He acts as the reader's eyes for the invasion.

The narrator's wife

She is sent to Leatherhead when the danger begins and is absent for most of the book. Her safety is the quiet reason the narrator keeps pushing to survive.

Ogilvy

An astronomer near Horsell Common who first tells the narrator about the flashes on Mars. He walks toward the cylinder under a white flag and is killed by the Heat-Ray, which shows how little the Martians care about peace.

The curate

A young clergyman who talks of faith and judgment but falls apart under strain. In the ruined house his fear endangers them both, and Wells uses him to show how fear can overwhelm belief.

The artilleryman

A soldier met on Putney Hill who dreams of an underground human colony. He is clever and bold in speech, yet lazy in practice, and his plan highlights the gap between ideas and action.

The narrator's brother

A medical student in London whose story runs in parallel. Through him we see the flight from the capital, the rescue of two women and the escape by sea.

The Martians

Large, grey, tentacled beings with big brains and little emotion, who travel in cylinders and fight from tall tripod machines. Wells gives them cold logic rather than hatred, which makes them frightening.

Writing about this book

Start with the question Wells keeps asking: what happens when a powerful society meets one more powerful? Compare the way the Martians treat humans with the way European empires treated the people they conquered. Wells makes that link himself early in the book.

Questions to explore:

• Why does Wells leave the narrator unnamed, and how does that shape what you feel?
• Which scene shows human society at its best, and which at its worst: the Thunder Child, the exodus from London or the ruined house?
• The Martians are intelligent but show no kindness. Is that more frightening than a simple monster?
• What does the ending say about humanity's place in nature?

Useful angles for an essay: the book as a warning about empire, as a study of panic, as an early pattern for invasion stories, or as a story you can compare with a modern disaster film you know. For every point, name one specific scene, and write the argument in your own words.