Original 'War of the Worlds' Illustrations
When Henrique Alvim Corra read H.G. Wells The War of the Worlds in 1903, he couldnt help but pick up a pencil. At the time, the Brazil-born artist was living in Boitsfort, Belgium with his wife and child, trying to make a name for himself. Inspired by Wells words , he drew creepy, surreal images of the invading aliens from the storythen took the artwork to London to show it to the author himself.
According to The History Blog , though Wells had no idea who the 29-year-old artist was, hewas so impressed ... that he invited Alvim Corra to illustrate the upcoming special edition of The War of Worlds by Belgian publisher L. Vandamme. Now, more than 100 years later, the original drawings Alvim Corra created for the book are up for auction .
The special edition was published in 1906. Just 500 copies were made, each one numbered and signed by the artist. Wells would later say that Alvim Corra did more for my work with his brush than I with my pen.
Alvim Corra was just 34 when he died in 1910, and was still mostly unknown. The illustrations remained in hisfamily until 1990, when they were sold as a set to a private collector; this auction will sell off the pen and pencil on paperboard illustrations individually , each withAlvim Corras stamp on the reverse side. The auction, which ends May 14, could garner $500,000 total.
You can read more about Alvim Corras brief but incredible life over at The History Blog .
All images courtesy of Heritage Auctions
http://mentalfloss.com/article/63976/original-war-worlds-illustrations-auction
Tags
Who is online
544 visitors
Fantastic pictures illustrating one of my favorite books and movies (the original)
Enjoy
Fun to look at for sure Robert.
FLY
Glad you liked them
Classic illustrations for a classic story and film
Wells was one of my favorite writers when I was quite young and this was one of his best books ever. The illustrations are certainly worthy of the book and that's not always easy. I can still remember the first time I saw "The War of the Worlds", the 1953 one starring Gene Barry and for the first time being exposed not to just great science fiction on TV, but the disappointment of how much of a great masterpiece of a book has to be left out to fit it into 2 hour movie.
The 2005 version just reeked. What a horrible insult of a film it was!
M M
Totally agree - a book I read and reread as a child and that I have read a couple of times in recent years.
I also loved the original movie, did not bother with the remake.
I am glad you liked the pics
Well I've read the book, several times, listened to the '38 radio broadcast and watched the '53 and '05 movie versions several times.
Many of the scenes and depictions in the book were left out of both movies or worse changed to fit the vision of advanced tech of the day.
Nothing rivals the book in my estimation.
The '38 radio broadcast by Orson Wells took the novel and devised a series of broadcasts illustrating his complete re-write as news flashes. Now Orson knew or at least guestimated the audience reaction and that was what he was going for to illustrate just how powerful broadcast mediums were. He succeeded far beyond even his expansive imagination could conceive. The government very quickly came out with regulations preventing exactly what he did from ever being done again. Such is the power of broadcast media.
The '53 movie was made for a much more innocent audience and removed some of the more sinister and gory evil parts of the novel. (the martians using humans as their food and fuel source for one) They also advanced martian tech way beyond earth tech, (hovering vehicles, pulse weapons etc.)
The '05 movie brought back much of the gory graphic stuff and backed off the technological advance depicted. Articulated tripods, directed energy weapons, eating people, biomechanical machines. They stuck a bit more to the novel than did the '53 movie which followed the radio show script much closer.
All are good in their own way, none of them depict the full story, just certain aspects of it.
I hope someday, someone has the balls to do the actual story and do it accurately.
The artwork above, depicted scenes from the novel covering the warfare against the martians and the poignant scene at the end. Masterful and very well depicted.
Classic...
Thank you.
N M
Thanks for the feedback and perspective
I think that is true of most truly great and enduring literary works, but absolutely in this case
I am glad you liked the pics