The War of the Worlds

The Martian invasion mapped across real Surrey and London in strict order. The first cylinder lands in the sand-pits of Horsell Common at Woking; the tripods burn through Byfleet and are broken at the Thames by Shepperton and Weybridge; they push through Kew and Richmond into a London emptied by the exodus; and the last of them are found dead on Primrose Hill. Wells names the roads, stations, and church towers exactly. Horsell Common marks the landing with a tripod sculpture of its own.

The narrator

Horsell Common, Woking: the first cylinder

Bk. 1, Ch. 3 · 6% through the novel

I found a little crowd of perhaps twenty people surrounding the huge hole in which the cylinder lay. I have already described the appearance of that colossal bulk, embedded in the ground. The turf and gravel about it seemed charred as if by a sudden explosion.

The first Martian cylinder comes down on Horsell Common in the night. By morning it is a local curiosity, a heap of grey metal in a charred pit with boys throwing stones at it. Before the day is out the lid unscrews, the first Martian hauls itself into the open, and the Heat-Ray turns the sightseers to ash.

explicit Wells names Horsell Common and its sand-pits directly. The pin marks the sandpit on the common near Woking, the traditional landing site, where the town today stands a tripod sculpture.

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