H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds 1906 French Edition — Confrontation Scene

Predating the actual chaos of 20th-century warfare by nearly a decade, this Alvim Corrêa pen-and-ink illustration captures the brutal social breakdown that Wells predicted would follow an alien invasion — no ray-guns or spaceships here, just desperate, feral human survivors. A shirtless, wild-haired man confronts a hunched elderly figure among the ruins of a collapsed fence and overgrown grounds, conveying the psychological collapse of civilization under Martian occupation with raw, scratchy cross-hatching and charged body language.