a great collection of stories by someone as nerdy as I.

Like the best SF The War Of The Worlds is worked out to a logical plan but appeals equally to the intellect and the unconscious. HG cycled round the parts of the home counties where he set the action, planning death and destruction. Bicycles were a relatively new form of transport, and cyclists considered themselves kings of the road. (I strongly recommend Wells's novel The Wheels Of Chance, written at much the same time, which describes how an apprentice in a drapery store saves up to buy one of these wonderful machines and embarks on a holiday full of adventure, romance, and comic incident.)
The novel has three themes: The invasion of the 19th century by the 20th: The Martians deploy heat rays and suffocating "black smoke". Just a few years later, soldiers in the trenches would have to contend with flame-throwers and chlorine gas. The actual heat rays arrived later, in the form of lasers. The second theme concerns the effect of the invasion on human relationships. The narrator never anticipates that he will find himself obliged to commit murder, let alone murder a clergyman. In particular, the narrator's marriage is affected. He becomes separated from his wife not long after the invasion begins, and believes her dead until the closing chapters, when there is a joyous reunion. There is a subtext here relating to Wells's own first marriage with his cousin Isobel. Wells discovered early on that they were sexually incompatible and took up with his young student Amy Robbins, cohabiting with her while writing what would prove to be his first bestseller, The Time Machine, and marrying her as soon as his divorce came through. Even so, he loved Isobel very much and dreamed of a reconciliation. I'm sure Wells chose his words precisely when, at the end of the novel, the husband and wife who had believed each other dead meet unexpectedly in their deserted marital home and the wife's first words are "I came..."
The third theme is a Jungian one. The Martians represent mankind's shadow self. The narrator's first sight of a Martian in the darkness of the recently opened cylinder is a pair of glowing eyes. In Jungian dream analysis, glowing eyes in the dark represent confrontation with the aspects of one's psyche one is least willing to acknowledge. The Martians seem entirely alien - boneless, octopus-like creatures - yet the narrator speculates that in the distant past they evolved from man-like beings, creatures, deprived by technology over the centuries of both humanity and beauty of form. According to Jung, such a dream confrontation may result in the dreamer being severely burnt (See C.G.Jung: Flying Saucers A Modern Myth Of Things Seen In The Sky). Wells would have been unacquainted with Jung's work back in 1897, but he seems to be saying in this novel that war comes from Man's shadow self. Well-paced and full of action and incident and invention, the novel works on a subliminal level to pack a powerful punch.

While all of the stories are based on very interesting scientific ideas (especially for the time), the style of story varies. For my tastes, the more Wells sticks to the perspective of one character, the better. I thoroughly enjoyed The Time Machine, The Island of Dr. Moreau, and The First Men in the Moon as they stayed closer to the action and the mystery by staying closer to one characters perspective. Don't let the slow starts fool you. It's just his way. The War of the Worlds is classic, although begins to feel long winded at times.
And then there's The Invisible Man and The Food of the Gods. Wow. I didn't know someone could write about such an interesting subject, like invisibility, and seem so bored with it. For both of these stories, think horror/thriller meets Benny Hill. Okay, I know that sounds fun, but it isn't. Just when the invisible man is throwing a tantrum and threatening to bust some heads with his invisible fists, then we have to turn the story over to the Keystone Cops who trip over each other while Lucille Ball is outside yelling at Ricky. It's dark, brooding, mysterious stranger meets country bumpkins. I finished The Invisible Man because Wells' description of the invisible experience was great. But I was greatly frustrated with his insistence on diverting my attention to what the constable was eating for breakfast while his children did poorly in school. The Food of the Gods was all over the place. The science hook in this story was least interesting to me, it is the longest story of the bunch, and at times seems like Wells forgot what story he was writing. The characters in the story would come and go, to the point that I wasn't sure which ones I should be trying to remember. Wells will invest so much time on a supporting character, than dismiss them from the story in a sentence. I feel like I'm reading the rough drafts of his character studies, and every once in a while he'll get back to writing the story. The highlights of the story are the giant things. Literally. When commoners in Victorian England have a surprise run-in with a giant wasp, or a local militia gathers at night to battle a nest of man-sized rats. Then I feel like I'm watching a fun collage of 1950's horror flicks! But it drags. Oh, how it drags.

Only read The Time Machine from this collection so far.

It says they're unabridged, but other reviewers say they are. The stories do seem a bit short, but I don't have other versions of the books so I cannot compare. I only read three of the novels, as I had already read the other three. I added them separately as they're all separate books, but I wanted to mark this anthology :')

*** SPOILER ALERT ***
This review may contain SPOILERS

It's taken me a long time to reach H. G. Wells but I'm glad I finally did. He's an excellent writer and, for all its occasional weaknesses, this set of his science fiction novels deserves a five star rating. The Time Machine is a seminal piece - one of the first modern science fiction stories - and Wells's vision of a future where humanity has evolved into two separate species, the one preying on the other, is frighteningly and lucidly painted. The weakest story of the set is The Island of Dr Moreau which, although well told and characterised, does little to expand the story beyond basic conflict. The Invisible Man has a fascinating and sinister title character, whose sudden swing to madness is vividly depicted. If, like me, you want to read these novels in the order they were written then The War of the Worlds is next. This really is Wells's masterpiece. He wastes no time in plunging into the story, pulls no punches about the savagery of the Martian invasion and takes time to empathetically explore the human conflicts involved in responding to a hopeless life or death struggle with a relentless and vastly superior enemy. The First Men in the Moon is a (scientific inaccuracies allowed for) vivid description of first contact between uncomprehending humans and an advanced race of aliens which, appropriately, goes disastrously wrong largely through misunderstandings and problems communicating. The last published of the set, The Food of the Gods, starts as a tour-de-force of Dickens-style comedy, turns to horror as the Food has an effect on animals which wreak havoc and death and finally becomes a tragedy when the giant humans it creates find they are unable to live peaceably with regular sized people. Highly recommended to anyone with the remotest interest in science-fiction or, indeed, late Victorian writing.

All the lovelies in one beautiful collection. So much love for them.

Had this on my shelf for ages and really only read a story at a time when I felt compelled. Turns out I had read all the good ones in this collection, (first three stories) and the last three were just super meh to me and did not hold my interest at all! Even with War of the Worlds being the big one in here, it still was just meh.... definitely a case of certain classics just not hitting the way they would have at one point in the past. Appreciate what it did but I just enjoyed the first three stories in here so much better.... so this collection gets a star for each of the stories I actually enjoyed!

This omnibus is perfect for a first-time reader of Well's novels, however, the collection was *not* for me.

The editor of this collection has taken six brilliant novels, and condensed them into short-story format, going so far as to remove entire chapters, scenes, dialogue, etc. and trying to add superfluous, choppy information that was not originally in the stories in order to fill out a poor facsimile.

This is an inferior abridgement.

Readers deserve wholesome material, not literary pap, and that's what this omnibus has made of these classics.

In short, this is something you could gift your high-schooler, but if you hope to curl up with the original works of Wells, look elsewhere!

(Note: I was able to add unabridged editions of a few of these novels ["The Time Machine", "War of the Worlds", and "The Invisible Man"] for *free* from the Google Play Store)

The Time Machine -

The Island of Dr. Moreau -

The Invisible Man -

The First Men in the Moon -

The Food of the Gods -

The War of the Worlds -

Treasury of World Masterpieces is just that - A MASTERPIECE.

One of the best Science Fiction writers in history!