THE INVISIBLE MAN
Author:
Herbert George Wells
First edition:
The Invisible Man, A Grotesque Romance, 1897
Main illustrator:
Glasauer
In short:
One winter morning, in an Englsih inn, a weird guest called Griffin arrives with his face covered with bandages, a big hat and sunglasses. In his truck, there are plenty of small bottles and test tubes. Little by little life gets chaotic: the minister is robbed, peolpe are attacked... Eventually, when the innkeeper Mrs. Hall decides to evict the man, he gets angry, breaks up the forniture and throws his truck and his false nose at her. Regional newspapers talked about an "invisible man", who escaped unseen by anyone. He explains his story thus far to an old friend, Dr. Kemp, who terrified by his discovery, his crimes and his diabolic intentions, decides to turn him in. The crowd beats the invisible man to death. Only his corpse becomes slowly visible... Griffin, a well-learned scientist, had found the formula to invisibility, but the drug had some adverse side effects on his mind and unwillingly, Griffin was driven to commit crimes of every nature!
Selection of edition:
L'Homme invisible, illustrated by Willi Glasauer, Gallimard jeunesse, 1990.
More about The Invisible Man:
In this story, the life of a young scientist becomes a living hell due to his own experiemnts. Even if the plot and the moralising messages are different, this idea of the scentist and his experiments is also present in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Like Dr. Jekill (see The Strange Case of Dr. Jekill and Mr. Hyde by R.L.Stevenson) Griffin uses himself as the subject of his experiment, which in this tale consist in becoming invisible. Yet, he is unable to reverse its results.
Wells has managed to create a gripping masterpiece of psychological terror, based on the idea that some experiments (such as the impossible quest to discover the key to invisibility) turn his protagonist insane.
Adaptations:
The invisible Man, a science-fiction film by James Whale, 1933.