First edition of HG Wells’ ‘The War of the Worlds’ doubles estimate at £11,000
Martians land in Surrey and terrorise much of southern England in tripedal war-machines equipped with death-rays before finally succumbing to terrestrial bacteria. That, put very simply, is the story line of HG Wells’ 1898 novel, ‘The War of the Worlds’, an apocalyptic vision that retains an iconic place in the realms of science fiction.
A first bookform edition sold for £11,000 at Cheffins of Cambridge earlier this month was slightly f…