La Guerre des mondes

Strange cylinders fall from the sky on the south of England, and the Martians inside them set out to conquer the Earth with heat-rays and huge fighting machines on three legs. The narrator, a writer living near London, sees his town burn, loses his wife in the panic and crosses a country in ruins as the army is swept away. H. G. Wells tells the first great invasion story as an eyewitness account, precise and breathless. The French translation by Henry-D. Davray was read by Wells himself.