The War of the Worlds (Plot Summary)

Plot Summary

Book 1, Chapter 1: the Eve of the War

The narrator of The War of the Worlds is never identified by name. He refers to a "great light" seen on the planet Mars in 1894, explaining that this was six years before the time when he is writing. Earth's astronomers were perplexed about what to make of it, he says, but later realized that it was the invading forces, being shot toward Earth as if out of a gun.

Book 1, Chapter 2: the Falling Star

People think that the first Martian ship is a falling star, then a meteor. An astronomer hears something within the metal tube that landed.

Book 1, Chapter 3: on Horsell Common

The narrator goes to investigate the crash site, where a crowd of spectators has gathered. Also there are several astronomers gathered.

Book 1, Chapter 4: the Cylinder Opens

The top of the cylinder opens, and the crowd scatters. A Martian, with huge eyes and flailing antennae, jumps out, and another looks out the top. One man who slipped into the crater that the cylinder made tries to crawl out of the hole, but the Martian grabs him and pulls him back.

Book 1, Chapter 5: the Heat-Ray

Because the Martians do not seem able to climb out of the pit their ship is in, people crowd around again. A group of men approach the Martians with a white flag, signaling that they come in peace, but they are incinerated by a Heat-Ray that is fired at them.

Book 1, Chapter 6: the Heat-Ray in the Chobham Road

Word of the Heat-Ray spreads to the nearby towns of Cobham, Woking, and Ottershaw. Hundreds of people come to observe what is coming on. When the ray is turned on the crowd, it is unable to kill everyone because it is being fired from down in the pit, but two women and a little boy are trampled in the rush to get away from the Martians.

Book 1, Chapter 7: How I Reached Home

The narrator returns to his home, on the way hearing people talk about the Martian ship. His wife has dinner on the table. She has not heard anything about all of this until he tells her what he saw. The morning newspapers report on the Martians, but they say that they would never be able to threaten the planet because the Earth's gravity, much stronger than the gravity of Mars, would weigh them down.

Book 1, Chapter 8: Friday Night

While they can hear hammering sounds from within the pit where the Martians have landed, the army sends soldiers to surround the cylinder. A second cylinder from Mars arrives on Earth, landing not too far from the first.

Book 1, Chapter 9: the Fighting Begins

The day is like an ordinary Saturday, except that everyone is talking about the Martians. The Martians release the Heat-Ray across the countryside, and it reaches for miles around. The narrator rents a dog cart from his landlord to take his wife away from their home, which is too close to the invaders, to live with his cousin in Leatherhead, twelve miles away.

Book 1, Chapter 10: in the Storm

There is a thunderstorm when he tries to return. On the road, he encounters the Martians, mobilized in a pod that walks on three hundred-foot-tall legs. As he goes toward his house, he encounters the charred remains of people.

Book 1, Chapter 11: At the Window

From the upstairs window of his house, the narrator sees fires across the whole countryside, and several Martian tripods lumbering across the valley. He sees an artilleryman outside of his house and has him come inside; the man tells of how the Martians' Heat-Ray wiped out his army division.

Book 1, Chapter 12: What I Saw of the Destruction of Weybridge and Shepperton

The narrator and the artilleryman leave for London. They come across another army division and tell them of the destruction they have seen. They also come across refugees fleeing their homes. When the Martians arrive, the narrator is able to survive their Heat-Rays by diving under water. One Martian pod is destroyed by artillery fire before the people are wiped out by the Heat-Ray.

Book 1, Chapter 13: How I Fell in with the Curate

The narrator floats downstream in a boat, scorched from the heating of the river water. He meets a curate who is turning crazy with panic and takes him with him toward London.

Book 1, Chapter 14: in London

Chapter 14 is about how the narrator's brother, a medical student in London, learned of the Martians. While battles are being waged against the Martians to the south, little news had reached the city: telegraph lines are down and observers are dead. There are rumors about the one Martian cylinder that has been destroyed, and refugees from the countryside tell stories about what they have seen. Finally, reports reach the city of the Black Smoke, which hovers near the ground and waterways and suffocates anyone whose lungs it seeps into.

Book 1, Chapter 15: What Happened in Surrey

The narrator and the curate watch the human military forces smashed by three Martian tripods using the Heat-Ray and the Black Smoke.

Book 1, Chapter 16: the Exodus from London

This chapter chronicles the attempts of the narrator's brother to escape from London. All trains are overcrowded, and the tracks are crammed with people trying to escape. The Black Smoke is traveling up the river from the south. The narrator's brother helps two women as some men are trying to steal their horse carriage from them, and they invite him to travel with them.

Book 1, Chapter 17: The Thunder Child

The narrator's brother and his companions have their horse taken away from them. They make it to the sea just as the Martians are approaching, but they manage to escape on a boat. A naval ship manages to destroy a Martian tripod before a flying ship that the Martians have made on Earth flies overhead, spreading the Black Smoke.

Book 2, Chapter 1: Under Foot

Book 2 chronicles "The Earth under the Martians." The narrator decides that the curate is too much trouble to stay with him, and decides to part ways. They arrive at London and find it deserted, but a strange red plant is growing everywhere: it is something that came with the Martians from their planet. The house where the curate and the narrator have stopped to look for food is nearly hit by a new cylinder arriving from Mars, and they are then stuck there because the Martians will see them if they leave.

Book 2, Chapter 2: What We Saw from the Ruined House

In the ruined house on the edge of the crater, the men watch the Martians build new machines, which look like themselves but have the mobility to attack the human race.

Book 2, Chapter 3: the Days of Imprisonment

Trapped in the ruined house with food supplies dwindling, the narrator comes to hate the curate, who complains constantly and eats and drinks, which makes him loud, threatening their hiding place. They watch the Martians take human prisoners and suck the blood out of them.

Book 2, Chapter 4: the Death of the Curate

When the curate panics and makes too much noise, the narrator hits him with a cleaver. A Martian reaches into the house with its tentacle: it comes close to the narrator but does not find him, and instead drags the curate's body away.

Book 2, Chapter 5: the Stillness

After fifteen days in the house, the narrator steps outside to find that the pit where the Martians were working is abandoned. Birds and dogs scrounge among the discarded skeletons of humans.

Book 2, Chapter 6: the Work of Fifteen Days

The narrator wanders through London and finds it deserted.

Book 2, Chapter 7: the Man on Putney Hill

The narrator meets the artilleryman from Chapter 12 who has a pragmatic idea for the regeneration of humanity. He plans to start a new society in the sewers, and they will adapt to the new reality of Martian dominance and focus on the disciplined struggle for life. Despite what he says, the man works little and wants to spend his time playing cards, drinking, and smoking.

Book 2, Chapter 8: Dead London

Wandering through the desolate streets of London, the narrator comes to realize that the Martian tripods are not moving. The Martians are dead. He explains that scientists later determined that they had no natural defenses for Earth's bacteria.

Book 2, Chapter 9: Wreckage

The narrator is driven nearly mad with the idea that he is the last man alive. A family looks after him until his delirium breaks. Then he goes home, sorrowful that he will not see his wife ever again, but she shows up there, thinking he is dead, and they are reunited.

Book 2, Chapter 10: the Epilogue

Once news of the Martians' demise spread, countries from all over the world send food and aid, and those who had survived by leaving return. The government believes that the Martians may have colonized Venus and that might satisfy their needs, but the narrator still is uneasy about whether they might try another attack against Earth some time in the future.

Media Adaptations

• An audiocassette version of Wells's The War of the Worlds is available from Books in Motion. It was released in 1982.
• The 1938 radio adaptation of The War of the Worlds, by Orson Welles's Mercury Theatre on the Air company, is of course the most famous and has become an important piece of American history because of the panic that it induced when it went out across the country.
• The War of the Worlds was loosely adapted into a movie in 1953 by producer George Pal, and it starred Gene Barry and Ann Robinson. The adaptation won the Academy Award for Best Special Effects. It is available on VHS and DVD from Paramount.
• A stage musical version of the story was produced in London in 1978. Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of the "War of the Worlds" starred Richard Burton and had songs by David Essex and musicians from the bands The Moody Blues and Tin Lizzy. The soundtrack album achieved multi-platinum status and is available on CBS Records.