The Mercury Theatre broadcast its adaptation on October 30, 1938. These portraits, book images and press photographs show the people and media behind the story. The rehearsal photograph and the following day’s press conference are dated separately from the broadcast itself.
Topic: War of the Worlds radio broadcast
01 / 06
Welles before the broadcast
Carl Van Vechten photographed Orson Welles on March 1, 1937, more than a year before The War of the Worlds. The portrait is preserved in the Library of Congress collection. It shows the young performer who would lead the Mercury radio company, rather than a moment from the October 1938 broadcast.
Photo details
Date
March 1, 1937
Location
New York, United States
Photographer
Carl Van Vechten
Archive / collection
Library of Congress, Carl Van Vechten Collection, van.5a52776
Rights / license
Public domain according to the Library of Congress collection statement; no known restrictions. Full portrait retained.
Carl Van Vechten / Library of Congress, Carl Van Vechten Collection, van.5a52776
02 / 06
The novelist whose name sounded almost the same
H. G. Wells in a portrait by Frederick Hollyer, cataloged to about 1890. His novel placed the Martian invasion in England. The later American broadcast changed the setting and the form of the storytelling, while keeping the encounter with a technologically overwhelming invader.
Photo details
Date
Circa 1890
Location
United Kingdom; exact location unrecorded
Photographer
Frederick Hollyer
Archive / collection
LSE Library, IMAGELIBRARY/120
Rights / license
No known copyright restrictions; LSE Library release through Flickr Commons.
The cover of the first American book edition, published by Harper and Brothers in New York in 1898. The source scan is small and is reproduced as an archival book cover. The printed title had been familiar to science-fiction readers long before it became the center of a broadcasting controversy.
Photo details
Date
1898
Location
New York, United States
Photographer
Cover designer unrecorded; text by H. G. Wells
Archive / collection
Harper and Brothers / Wikimedia Commons
Rights / license
Public domain in the United States; 1898 publication, copyright expired.
Cover designer unrecorded; text by H. G. Wells / Harper and Brothers / Wikimedia Commons
04 / 06
The invasion on the printed page
An illustration from the 1898 American edition, digitized from the book and cropped to the artwork. Warwick Goble supplied the illustrations. The man on rough ground belongs to the novel’s visual world; this is neither a photograph nor a scene from the 1938 radio production.
Photo details
Date
1898 publication; digital extraction in 2011
Location
Published in New York, United States
Photographer
Warwick Goble; digital extraction by Theornamentalist
Archive / collection
Internet Archive scan of the 1898 edition / Wikimedia Commons
Rights / license
Public domain; 1898 publication and expired copyright.
Warwick Goble; digital extraction by Theornamentalist / Internet Archive scan of the 1898 edition / Wikimedia Commons
05 / 06
A rehearsal, but not that rehearsal
Welles directs the Mercury company with his arms raised while actors stand near microphones and musicians sit behind them. Acme’s original note identifies this as a typical Mercury rehearsal, explicitly not the War of the Worlds rehearsal. The photograph circulated after the broadcast and was printed on November 3, 1938.
Photo details
Date
1938; distributed October 31 and published November 3
Location
New York, United States
Photographer
Acme Telephoto
Archive / collection
Acme Telephoto / The Gastonia Daily Gazette / Wikimedia Commons
Rights / license
Public domain in the United States; Commons documents publication without a copyright notice.
Orson Welles faces newspaper reporters on October 31, 1938. The gathering followed the broadcast and the first reports of public alarm. The photograph documents his explanation to the press; it does not establish how many listeners had believed the fictional invasion.
Photo details
Date
October 31, 1938
Location
New York, United States
Photographer
Acme News Photos
Archive / collection
Acme News Photos / Wikimedia Commons
Rights / license
Public domain in the United States; Commons documents publication without a copyright notice.
