Henrique Alvim Corrêa's Martian Tripod by Night – War of the Worlds 1906
An Edwardian reader would have felt a cold dread creeping up their spine at this vision — the familiar English woodland rendered sinister by the silhouette of an alien war machine glowing against a hellish sky. Henrique Alvim Corrêa's masterful pen-and-ink illustration for H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds captures a Martian tripod stalking through a nocturnal landscape, its three-legged form luminous and terrible, reflected in the muddy stream below as barren trees bear witness to the invasion.
Restrained and atmospheric rather than lurid, this belongs in a museum — Corrêa's illustrations are among the finest ever made for Wells' novel. The mood is more Gustave Doré than pulp exploitation, lending it genuine literary gravitas.
“The Martians are seen to be working by night.”
