 First edition cover (UK) | |
| Author | H. G. Wells |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Science fiction novel |
| Published | 1897 |
| Publisher | C. Arthur Pearson (UK) Edward Arnold (US) |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 149 |
| Text | The Invisible Man at Wikisource |
The Invisible Man is an 1897 science fiction novel by British writer H. G. Wells. Originally serialised in Pearson's Weekly in 1897, it was published as a novel the same year. The Invisible Man to whom the title refers is Griffin, a scientist who has devoted himself to research into optics and who invents a way to change a body's refractive index to that of air so that it neither absorbs nor reflects light. He carries out this procedure on himself and renders himself invisible, but fails in his attempt to reverse it. A practitioner of random and irresponsible violence, Griffin has become an iconic character in horror fiction.
While its predecessors, The Time Machine and The Island of Doctor Moreau, were written using first-person narrators, Wells adopts a third-person objective point of view in The Invisible Man. The novel is considered influential, and helped establish Wells as the "father of science fiction".[1]
- ^ Westfahl, Gary, ed. (2009). The Science of Fiction and the Fiction of Science: Collected Essays on SF Storytelling and the Gnostic Imagination. Critical Explorations in Science Fiction and Fantasy. McFarland & Company. p. 41. ISBN 978-0786437221.