British Astronomer Royal, Sir William Herschel studied Mars between 1777 and 1783. He postulates a 30 degree axial tilt and notes that faint stars which passed near Mars were not dimmed, indicating a thin atmosphere. Hershel observed seasonal changes of the polar caps and suggested that they are snow and ice.

Johann Hieronymus Schroeter makes drawings of Mars in 1800 Honeré Flaugergues, a French amateur sees "yellow clouds" on Mars in 1809, later identified as dust clouds. Flaugergues also notices rapid melting of ice caps.

Wilhelm Beer and Johann von Maedler in 1840 draw a global map of Mars. They determine a rotational period of 24 hours, 37 minutes, 22.6 seconds.

In 1854 William Whewell speculates about life on Mars.

The Jesuit monk Angelo Secchi draws map in 1858 calling Syrtis Major the "Atlantic Canal". In 1863 Secchi makes color sketches of Mars, he refers to channels as "canali". Emmanuel Liais in 1860 proposes that the dark regions are not seas but vegetation.

In 1867 Richard Anthony Proctor publishes a map of Mars with continents and oceans.

Pierre Jules Janssen and Sir William Huggins attempt to detect oxygen and water vapor spectroscopically, on Mars in 1867.

Camille Flammarion suggests in 1873 that the red color of Mars is due to vegetation. In 1892 he publishes Volume 1 of his encyclopaedia of La Planète Mars. The second volume is published in 1909.

Giovanni Schiaparelli draws a map of Mars using names from historic and mythological sources in 1877. He uses Secchi's terms canale and canali to describe streaks that he sees. This gets translated into "canals" which has connotations of Martian intelligent life. Later in 1879 his canali become double.

Asaph Hall announces discovery of Mars' two moons in August of 1877. He names them Phobos and Deimos after the horses that pulled the chariot of Mars in Roman mythology.

Percival Lowell builds an observatory at Flagstaff, Arizona, in 1894 and makes his first observations of Mars.

In that same year the American astronomer Barnard, discoverer of the Jovian moon Amalthea and keen observer, fails to detect any canals on Mars.

H. G. Wells book War of the Worlds is serialized in Pearson's Magazine during 1897. It is printed in hardback the following year.