THE WAR OF THE WENUSES

by

C. L. GRAVES AND E. V. LUCAS

Reprint of the 1898 ed. published by J. W. Arrowsmith Bristol, Eng.

[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF THE INVISIBLE AUTHOR. (From a Negative by THE SPECTROSCOPIC Co.)]

THE WAR OF THE WENUSES

Translated from the Artesian of H. G. Pozzuoli

Author of _The Treadmill_, _The Isthmus of Dr. Day_, _The Vanishing Lady_, etc., etc.

by

C. L. GRAVES AND E. V. LUCAS

"Not novels and poetry swipes, but ideas, science, books" _The Artilleryman_

[Illustration: Arrowsmith colophon]

TO

H. G. WELLS

THIS OUTRAGE ON A FASCINATING AND CONVINCING ROMANCE

CONTENTS

BOOK I.--The Coming of the Wenuses.

Chapter

I. "JUST BEFORE THE BATTLE, MOTHER"

II. THE FALLING STAR

III. THE CRINOLINE EXPANDS

IV. HOW I REACHED HOME

BOOK II.--London Under the Wenuses.

I. THE DEATH OF THE EXAMINER

II. THE MAN AT UXBRIDGE ROAD

III. THE TEA-TRAY IN WESTBOURNE GROVE

IV. WRECKAGE

V. BUBBLES

APPENDIX A

APPENDIX B

BOOK I.

The Coming of the Wenuses.

The Coming of the Wenuses.

* * * * *

I.

"JUST BEFORE THE BATTLE, MOTHER."

No one would have believed in the first years of the twentieth century that men and modistes on this planet were being watched by intelligences greater than woman's and yet as ambitious as her own. With infinite complacency maids and matrons went to and fro over London, serene in the assurance of their empire over man. It is possible that the mysticetus does the same. Not one of them gave a thought to Wenus as a source of danger, or thought of it only to dismiss the idea of active rivalry upon it as impossible or improbable. Yet across the gulf of space astral women, with eyes that are to the eyes of English women as diamonds are to boot-buttons, astral women, with hearts vast and warm and sympathetic, were regarding Butterick's with envy, Peter Robinson's with jealousy, and Whiteley's with insatiable yearning, and slowly and surely maturing their plans for a grand inter-stellar campaign.

Table of contents (by pages)

• 1: The War of the Wenuses by Graves and Lucas
• 2: As Wenus approached opposition
• 3: Leaving a gentle frou frou behind it
• 4: Pendriver lives to the west of it
• 5: And was standing on the Crinoline
• 6: Victims of the terrible Mash Glance of the Wenuses
• 7: The whereabouts of the Wenuses
• 8: Carrying the Pall Mall Gazette
• 9: Along Belsize Avenue and Buckland Crescent to Belsize Road
• 10: My feelings towards the Wenuses were
• 11: And the tallest and most fluorescent of the Wenuses
• 12: And with one despairing yell of Ulla
• 13: The Wenuses 'ave only lost one Crinoline
• 14: The drains are the places for you and me
• 15: March on the Wenuses in Westbourne Grove
• 16: And yet the Wenuses looked friendly
• 17: Whether from Martians or Wenuses
• 18: Steadily wheeled my way across Westminster Bridge
• 19: The Wenuses then desisted from their labours of inflation
• 20: While deprecating senseless panic
• 21: Some few weeks after the extinction of the Wenuses