War of the Worlds (Edited Classic)

In the night sky over a peaceful English village, the red planet hangs low on the horizon. Mysterious flares are sighted on the Martian surface—what could they mean? Then strange metal cylinders begin dropping on English soil. And then death emerges from those cylinders. Earth is under attack from an enemy it never knew existed!

Townsend Library classics have been edited to make them more accessible to today’s readers. But the books have not been “abridged” in the sense of shortening them by sacrificing story development, character richness, and the author’s voice. In our experience, abridged books result from a simplistic removal of large chunks of material or a formulaic “translation” that robs a book of its distinctive flavor. By contrast, as we produce a Townsend Library title, we seek to edit the material carefully and respectfully in order to preserve the qualities that have made the book a classic.

TL editors approach every book entirely on its own merits, guided constantly by these questions:

• “What will get in the way of a reader’s enjoyment of this wonderful story?”

• “How can the story be made more readable while preserving the integrity of the original book?”