The War of the Worlds was the first novel to narrate a Martian invasion of planet Earth. Its author, H.G. Wells, is, along with Jules Verne, one of the fathers of science fiction, and this book is one of the gems of the genre. First published in 1898, it stirred deep concern in a society that gazed with fascination at that other world, Mars, about which nothing was known and, therefore, everything could be assumed. In particular, it projected apocalyptic fears of an invasion by technologically more evolved beings: "It was the beginning of the defeat of civilization, of the slaughter of humanity." Like all classics, the cadence of its effects endured, and forty years after its publication, the American actor and director Orson Welles adapted the novel and dramatized, in a radio broadcast, the arrival of Martian ships in New York City, producing chaos, panic, and general confusion in the populous city. It was Halloween night, and that was his joke and homage to H.G. Wells, who had written: "Many truths have been spoken in jest." This edition includes a QR link that allows you to listen to Orson Welles' original recording and read the translation of the radio script. It also features the illustrations by Brazilian artist Henrique Alvim Corrêa, published only in 1906 by the Belgian publisher L. Vandamme & Co. in a limited run of just 500 copies. Begun four years after the famous book's appearance, and worked with charcoal pencil and ink on paper, they brought to life "those monsters with something of a fungus in their oily, dark skin."