Book: The Invisible Man

The Invisible Man

A scientist driven mad by the liberation of invisibility.

Published in 1897, The Invisible Man was H G Wells' third great scientific romance, following The Time Machine and The Island of Dr Moreau. Like its predecessors, it elicited a critical and popular fanfare upon release, delighting readers with its tantalising central concept and some ingenious unseen shenanigans. Its tale of a civilised Victorian gent battling with his bestial alter-ego is born of the gothic tradition: an obsession with the duality of man, and the concerns of a burgeoning middle-class that the uncouth masses might rise and subsume them.

For Wells, it was another imaginative coup: invisibility was a concept that had hardly been developed since The Emperor's New Clothes, but after this book it became a science fiction and fantasy staple. Several cinema and television adaptations have been attempted, most notably James Whale's 1933 movie, and the BBC's faithful 1984 series, not to mention Paul Verhoeven's more deranged take, The Hollow Man (2000).