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  • Published: 2 February 2023
  • ISBN: 9780241588857
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 64

Penguin Readers Level 1: The War of the Worlds (ELT Graded Reader)




Penguin Readers is an ELT graded reading series, designed for teenagers and young adults learning English as a foreign language.

With carefully adapted text, new illustrations and language practise activities, the Penguin Readers series introduces language learners to bestselling authors and compelling content. Titles include popular classics, exciting contemporary fiction, and thought-provoking non-fiction. The eBook edition does NOT include access to the audio edition and digital book.

The War of the Worlds, a Level 1 Reader, is A1 in the CEFR framework. Short sentences contain a maximum of two clauses, introducing the past simple tense and some simple modals, adverbs and gerunds. Illustrations support the text throughout, and many titles at this level are graphic novels.

The Martians are coming! They are burning houses and killing the people of Earth. How can the people stop them?

  • Published: 2 February 2023
  • ISBN: 9780241588857
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 64

About the author

H. G. Wells

H. G. Wells, the third son of a small shopkeeper, was born in Bromley in 1866. After two years' apprenticeship in a draper's shop, he became a pupil-teacher at Midhurst Grammar School and won a scholarship to study under T. H. Huxley at the Normal School of Science, South Kensington. He taught biology before becoming a professional writer and journalist. He wrote more than a hundred books, including novels, essays, histories and programmes for world regeneration.

Wells, who rose from obscurity to world fame, had an emotionally and intellectually turbulent life. His prophetic imagination was first displayed in pioneering works of science fiction such as The Time Machine (1895), The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897) and The War of the Worlds (1898). Later he became an apostle of socialism, science and progress, whose anticipations of a future world state include The Shape of Things to Come (1933). His controversial views on sexual equality and women's rights were expressed in the novels Ann Veronica (1909) and The New Machiavelli (1911). He was, in Bertrand Russell's words, 'an important liberator of thought and action'.

Wells drew on his own early struggles in many of his best novels, including Love and Mr Lewisham (1900), Kipps (1905), Tono-Bungay (1909) and The History of Mr Polly (1910). His educational works, some written in collaboration, include The Outline of History (1920) and The Science of Life (1930). His Experiment in Autobiography (2 vols., 1934) reviews his world. He died in London in 1946.

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