2. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Herbert George Wells, better known as H. G. Wells,
was the third son of a shopkeeper. After two years'
apprenticeship in a draper's shop, he became a pupil-
teacher at Midhurst Grammar School and won a
scholarship to study under T. H. Huxley at the Normal
School of Science, South Kensington. He taught
biology before becoming a professional writer and
journalist.
Wells is most famous today for his science fiction
novels, of which the best known are: The Time
Machine, The War of the Worlds, The Invisible Man,
The First Men in the Moon and The Island of Dr.
Moreau. He was a prolific writer, writing more than a
hundred books of both fiction and non-fiction, and
works in many different genres, including
contemporary novels, essays, histories, programmes
for world regeneration, and social commentary. He
3. ABOUT THE NOVEL
The Invisible Man is a science fiction novella
by H. G. Wells published in 1897. Originally
serialized in Pearson's Weekly in 1897, it was
published as a novel the same year. The Invisible
Man of the title is Griffin, a scientist who has
devoted himself to research into optics and
invents a way to change a body's refractive
index to that of air so that it absorbs and
reflects no light and thus becomes invisible. He
successfully carries out this procedure on
himself, but fails in his attempt to reverse the
procedure.
4. PLOT SUMMARY
A mysterious stranger, Griffin, arrives at the
local inn of the English village of Iping, West
Sussex, during a snowstorm. The stranger wears a
long-sleeved, thick coat and gloves, his face
hidden entirely by bandages except for a fake
pink nose, and a wide-brimmed hat. He is
excessively reclusive, irascible, and unfriendly. He
demands to be left alone and spends most of his
time in his rooms working with a set of chemicals
and laboratory apparatus, only venturing out at
night. While staying at the inn, hundreds of
strange glass bottles arrive that Griffin calls his
luggage. Many local townspeople believe this to be
5. Meanwhile, a mysterious burglary occurs in the
village. Griffin has run out of money and is trying
to find a way to pay for his board and lodging.
When his landlady demands he pay his bill and
quit the premises, he reveals part of his
invisibility to her in a fit of pique. An attempt to
apprehend the stranger is frustrated when he
undresses to take advantage of his invisibility,
fights off his would-be captors, and flees to the
downs.
There Griffin coerces a tramp, Thomas Marvel,
into becoming his assistant. With Marvel, he
returns to the village to recover three notebooks
that contain records of his experiments. When
Marvel attempts to betray the Invisible Man to
6. Griffin's furious attempt to avenge his betrayal
leads to his being shot. He takes shelter in a
nearby house that turns out to belong to Dr.
Kemp, a former acquaintance from medical
school. To Kemp, he reveals his true identity: the
Invisible Man is Griffin, a former medical
student who left medicine to devote himself to
optics. Griffin recounts how he invented medicine
capable of rendering bodies invisible and, on
impulse, performed the procedure on himself.
Griffin tells Kemp of the story of how he became
invisible. He explains how he tried the invisibility
on a cat, then himself. Griffin burns down the
boarding house he is staying in along with all his
equipment he used to turn invisible to cover his
tracks, but soon realizes he is ill-equipped to
7. Kemp has already denounced Griffin to the local
authorities and is watching for help to arrive as
he listens to this wild proposal. When the
authorities arrive at Kemp's house, Griffin
fights his way out and the next day leaves a
note announcing that Kemp himself will be the
first man to be killed in the "Reign of Terror".
Kemp, a cool-headed character, tries to organize
a plan to use himself as bait to trap the
Invisible Man, but a note he sends is stolen from
his servant by Griffin.
Griffin shoots and injures a local policeman who
comes to Kemp's aid, then breaks into Kemp's
house. Kemp bolts for the town, where the local
citizenry comes to his aid. Griffin is seized,
8. CHARACTERS
Griffin is the surname of the story's protagonist.
His name is not mentioned until about halfway
through the book. He is consumed with his greed
for power and fame. He is the model of science
without humanity. A gifted young student, he
becomes interested in the science of refraction.
During his experiments he accidentally discovers
formulas that would make tissue invisible. Obsessed
with his discovery he tries the experiment on
himself and becomes invisible. However he does not
discover how to reverse the process and slowly
discovers that the advantages of being invisible
outweighed the disadvantages and the problems he
9. •Dr. Kemp is a scientist living in the town of
Port Burdock. He is a former acquaintance
of Griffin, Griffin knew Kemp to be interested
in strange, bizarre aspects of science. Kemp
continues to study science as he hopes to be
admitted to The Royal Society. His scientific
temperament makes him listen to the story
Griffin tells him. He does not become
hysterical nor does he behave like the locals.
Griffin hopes Kemp would support him in his evil
schemes and help him live a normal life. But
Kemp is too decent to join him. He is repelled
by Griffin's brutality and considers him insane
and homicidal. He betrays Griffin to the police.
10. Janny Hall is the wife of Mr. Hall and the
owner of the Coach and Horses Inn. A very
friendly, down-to-earth woman who enjoys
socializing with her guests, Mrs. Hall is
continually frustrated by the mysterious
Griffin's refusal to talk with her, and his
repeated temper tantrums.
George Hall is the husband of Mrs. Hall and
helps her run the Coach and Horses Inn. He is
the first person in Iping to suspect that the
mysterious Griffin is invisible: when a dog bites
him and tears his glove, Griffin retreats to his
room and Hall follows to see if he is all right, only
to see Griffin without his glove and handless (or
11. Thomas Marvel is a droll tramp unwittingly
recruited to assist the Invisible Man as his
first visible partner. He carries the Invisible
Man's scientific notebooks and stolen money.
Eventually Marvel grows afraid of his unseen
partner and flees to Port Burdock, taking both
the notebooks and the money with him, where
he seeks police protection. Although the
Invisible Man is furious and vows revenge, he
becomes preoccupied with hiding from the law
and retaliating against Dr. Kemp, and Marvel is
spared. Marvel eventually uses the stolen money
to open his own inn, which he calls the Invisible
Man, and prospers. The novel ends with him
12. Col. Adye is the chief of police in the town
of Port Burdock. He is called upon by Dr. Kemp
when the Invisible Man turns up in Kemp's house.
Adye saves Kemp from the Invisible Man's first
attempt on his life and leads the hunt for the
unseen fugitive. He mostly follows Kemp's
suggestions in planning the campaign against the
Invisible Man. He is eventually shot by the
Invisible Man with Kemp's revolver. Upon being
shot, Adye is described as falling down and not
getting back up. However, he is mentioned in
the epilogue as being one of those who had
questioned Thomas Marvel about the whereabouts
13. Dr. Cuss is a doctor living in the village
of Iping. Intrigued by tales of a bandaged
stranger staying at the Coach and Horses Inn,
Dr. Cuss goes to see him under the pretence
of asking for a donation to the nurse's fund.
Cuss is scared away after Griffin pinches his
nose with an invisible hand. Cuss immediately
goes to see the Rev. Bunting, who, not
surprisingly, does not believe the doctor's wild
story. Later, Cuss and Bunting obtain the
Invisible Man's notebooks, but these are
subsequently stolen back from them by the
invisible Griffin, when he also takes both
men's clothes.
J.A. Jaffers is a constable or "bobby" in
14. SCIENCE
Russian writer Yakov I. Perelman pointed out
in Physics Can Be Fun (1913) that from a
scientific point of view, a man made invisible by
Griffin's method should have been blind, since
a human eye works by absorbing incoming light,
not letting it through completely. Wells seems
to show some awareness of this problem in
Chapter 20, where each of the eyes of an
otherwise invisible cat retains a visible retina.
15. UNDERSTANDING THE NOVEL
First published in 1897, H.G. Wells' The Invisible Man has
given birth to innumerable literary imitations, film
adaptations, and even a couple of television series, thus
becoming a kind of modern myth. In Wells' hands, the story
of Griffin, the University College student who finds a way to
make himself invisible, becomes a parable of the dangerous
power of modern science. Driven to his experiments by a
fierce ambition in the first place, Griffin grows increasingly
megalomaniacal once he becomes invisible. He thus takes his
place in a line of literary portrayals of mad scientists that
stretches back to Mary Shelley's Victor Frankenstein, the
prototype of the man who isolates himself from his fellows to
pursue an ambitious project and in the process loses his
humanity, unleashing forces he can neither truly understand
nor control. Interest in The Invisible Man has understandably
tended to focus on the scientific aspects of the tale,
especially the questions Wells raises about the ethics of
modern technology.
But as often happens in Wells' work, the science-fiction
