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The Invisible Man

Pagehush Classics Famous stories, poems and fables that are old enough to be … Follow

A stranger wrapped in bandages, gloves and dark glasses takes a room at a village inn one snowy February, and refuses to let anyone see his face. He is Griffin, a scientist who has made himself invisible and can't turn back. H. G. Wells's dark, funny novel about what a man would do if nobody could see him. By H. G. Wells (1897). A public-domain classic.

Content warnings: Violence

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How it begins The stranger came early in February, one wintry day, through a biting wind and a driving snow, the last snowfall of the year, over the down, walking from Bramblehurst railway station, and carrying a little black portmanteau in his thickly gloved hand. He was wrapped up from head to foot, and the brim of his soft felt hat hid every inch of his face but the shiny tip of his nose; the snow had piled itself against his shoulders and chest, and added a white crest to the burden he carried. He staggered into the “Coach and Horses” more dead than alive, and flung his portmanteau down. “A fire,” he cried, “in the name of human charity! A room and a fire!” He stamped and shook the snow from off himself in the bar, and followed Mrs. Hall into her guest parlour to strike his bargain. And with that much introduction, that and a couple of sovereigns flung upon the table, he took up his quarters in the inn.Mrs. Hall lit the fire and left him there while she went to prepare him a meal with her own hands. A guest to stop at Iping in the wintertime was an unheard-of piece of luck, let alone a guest who was no “haggler,” and she was resolved to show herself worthy of her good fortune. As soon as the bacon was well under way, and Millie, her lymphatic maid, had been brisked up a bit by a few deftly chosen expressions of contempt, she carried the cloth, plates, and glasses into the parlour and began to lay them with the utmost éclat. Although the fire was burning up briskly, she was surprised to see that her visitor still wore his hat and coat, standing with his back to her and staring out of the window at the falling snow in the yard. His gloved hands were clasped behind him, and he seemed to be lost in thought. She noticed that the melting snow that still sprinkled his shoulders dripped upon her carpet. “Can I take your hat and coat, sir?” she said, “and give them a good dry in the kitchen?” Keep reading →

About this story

On a snowy February day a stranger arrives at a village inn in Sussex, wrapped from head to foot in bandages, with dark glasses and a false nose. He demands a private room and does not want to be disturbed. The villagers are curious, and soon things start to go missing.

H. G. Wells published it in 1897. Griffin, the man at the centre of it, is a scientist who has found a way to make himself invisible, and the book is interested in what that would do to a person more than in how it works. It begins as a comic village mystery and becomes something much darker.

Themes: Power without responsibility, isolation, science
Good for: Science-fiction readers; anyone who knows the idea from films but not the book
Worth noticing: How the tone moves from comedy to menace as we learn more about Griffin.

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