Charles L. Graves & E. V. Lucas 48 min read

The Wenuses invade Earth from the planet of love, landing not war-machines but crinolines and irresistible feminine wiles, in a gleeful send-up of H. G. Wells's Martian classic.

This 1898 parody by C. L. Graves and E. V. Lucas affectionately spoofs The War of the Worlds. Witty, silly, delightful. Read it for a clever Victorian burlesque of Wells's famous invasion novel, the Martians recast as amorous Wenuses conquering London by charm rather than heat-rays, in a genial literary joke dedicated to Wells himself.

In its time

Published in 1898, during the 1890s, wells arrives.

Reading it

48 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).