H.G. Wells first published The War of the Worlds in serialized form in 1897. The next year the first edition of the complete novel was published. It was an immediate success. Translated editions in Dutch, German, Polish, French, Russian and Italian followed in close succession, as well as several other English language editions, and while some of them had a smattering of graphic elements — the occasional tripod on the cover or title page — the first fully illustrated edition wasn’t published until 1906. It was this special edition that would influence the depiction of Wells’ creations for the next century.
The illustrator was Henrique Alvim Corrêa, a Brazilian artist who lived a short but intense and productive life. By his early 20s, he’d developed a style of strong contrasts and dynamic movement in drawing and painting, exploring surreal dreamscapes, caricatures, figures in action (military men, working women), landscapes real and fictional, themes of eroticism and violence individually and in combination.
In 1903 he read The War of the Worlds and was inspired to draw his vision of Wells’ Martians which fit with the recurring themes in his private work. Entirely unsolicited, Alvim Corrêa took his handful of drawings to London and showed them to Mr. Wells, who didn’t know him from Adam. The author was so impressed with the artwork that he invited Alvim Corrêa to illustrate the upcoming special edition of The War of Worlds by Belgian publisher L. Vandamme.
Ultimately, he would make 32 drawing for the book. Wells loved them and in 1906, L. Vandamme published the large format luxury illustrated French edition of The War of the Worlds. Each of the 500 copies of the special edition was numbered and signed by Henrique Alvim Corrêa. Wells would say of the illustrations: “Alvim Corrêa did more for my work with his brush than I with my pen.”
Corrêa died of tuberculosis in 1910 at the age of 34. He remains virtually unknown, even in his own country, outside of a small circle of rare book collectors and Wells connoisseurs. Nonetheless, his Wells drawings, now owned by private collectors, regularly go on display at museums around the world.
Here is a selection of the images I have included in the emails: