Illustrating Wells

It is very difficult to find Wells illustrations that aren't from The War of the Worlds. I find it understandable - of all his books, that's easily my favourite, and I can see why an artist would be drawn to it. There's something tremendously powerful in the images of a ravaged London and the giant metal war machines holding sway, as well as the more subtle but no less powerful images of the Red Weed, the stricken battle Thunder Child and the Artilleryman's quixotic vision of an underground civilisation.

But (to my sorrow) we're not studying War of the Worlds in my Coursera course, so I found some more relevant illustrations. We're passing out of the Golden Age of the illustrators, so many of these are from book covers or film posters.

The Island of Dr Moreau

We're moving into hard SF territory here, so the illustrations are overwhelmingly of the "pulp" variety. Some of them are nonetheless amazing: this site rounds up a few.

This one has a *Boys Own Adventure* feel, which I suppose is one way of looking at the narrative:

I love how all-inclusive it is: the artist seems to have tried to depict every single one of the Beast People. They all look more like animals than I imagined when I read the book. That might be the easier path for an artist - it must be difficult to draw them as they are described by Wells, where more subtle lines of the jaw and forehead hint at the creatures' origins, than to draw these beast-headed men.

This next one is interesting, because it reminds me of the scene in Frankenstein where the creature confronts his reflection for the first time:

There's a lot of artistic license here - I'm not sure what combination of animals would give rise to this particular monstrosity.

This is the poster to the 1977 film version, starring Michael York and Burt Lancaster:

This is beautiful. Something went horribly wrong with movie poster design in about 1979, and it never recovered. (The Mondo posters are so much better than anything that actually used to advertise film, and most of these fan-sourced posters for X-Men: First Class are, to use Wells' words, "immeasurably superior" to the studio poster).

The Invisible Man

Quite a challenge to an artist! Here's Andrei Goncharov's beautiful 1954 illustration of the opening scene:

I like how he captures a watchfulness in Griffin's face, despite the fact there's no actual face there.

Here's a pulp novel cover: we're moving towards the classic Invisible Man image here:

I love this. It's so simple, but the unravelling bandage speaks volumes. I have to re-read The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen again, as no less than two of its members are characters from books on the Coursera course. Moore made Griffin out to be a right bastard, and re-reading The Invisible Man for the first time since reading the comic, I can see he had every reason to do so. In terms of unlikeable protagonists, Griffin beats out even Victor Frankenstein.

Some short stories

Here's an 1897 illustration for "The Star", by Luděk Marold:

This is just OK, to me. There doesn't seem to be much trepidation or anxiety, just a kind of passive resignation. I'd have liked to have seen some indication of the cataclysmic environment changes being wrought.

English illustrator Clifford Webb did some amazing Art Deco illustrations for "The Country of the Blind":

These are great. I really need to read more about Art Deco, because the biggest association this is setting off in my mind is "Bioshock" (good) and Ayn Rand (VERY bad). There's a copy of this edition going on ebay for a mere 372 euros, if anyone's interested.

And finally, this is what's hanging on the wall behind me as I write this:

These Postertext posters are fantastic - and many of the books on the Coursera coursevare thusly illustrated,  Dracula, Frankenstein, Alice among them. I wanted Don Quixote and my conjoint wanted Flatland, so we compromised on War of the Worlds. They have one for Moreau too.