Have you ever wished that you could be invisible? A fly on the wall during secret conversations? A hidden observer, privy to all? What has evolved into a pop culture phenomenon, a well-known, beloved horror icon and a concept commonplace in 2026 originated with H.G. Wells’ 1897 science fiction novel “The Invisible Man,” the first work to ask, “What would it truly be like to be invisible?”
“The Invisible Man” follows Griffin, a brilliant scientist struck by these very questions. Overcome with an intense desire to uncover the possibility of invisibility, Griffin performs his experimental procedure upon himself, finding success as his body slips from the realm of visibility to invisibility, with deadly consequences that he could have never predicted.
The novel opens with a mysterious gentleman in the peak of winter, covered head to toe with a face obscured by bandages and rudely insistent on not being observed by the proprietors of the inn in which he has just arrived. The man locks himself away within his room in the pursuit of scientific experiments that his landlords have no hopes of understanding. When the overly-curious couple hears of robberies in their small village and forces themselves into his room, they discover that beneath his bandages is nothing at all—they have been housing an invisible man.
Their guest, an imperceptible Griffin, attacks the village in a rage of insanity, stripping his clothes and rendering himself uncatchable. He goes on a manic rampage of the English countryside, stealing and tormenting all he sees as he obsessively tries to recreate his experiments.
Upon discovering a former university colleague named Kemp, Griffin terrorizes the doctor in an attempt to gain a trustworthy confidant, one that will aid him in his true goal: undoing his currently irreversible invisibility.
In performing his initial experiment, Griffin cursed himself to a life of horror—incapable of going in public without his bandaged face, and, most disastrously, afflicted with an unexplained form of insanity that corrupts the once-curious scientist and creates a monster.
Kemp attempts to break free of Griffin’s tyranny, causing a brawl to ensue, in which the scared citizens of Kemp’s town attack the invisible man within their midst. In the struggle, Griffin’s reign of terror is unintentionally ended, the now-deceased scientist ending the novel by finally returning to visibility in death.
Shockingly accessible for a 21st-century audience, “The Invisible Man” proves why H.G. Wells is known as the father of science fiction. Not only does Wells provide a surprisingly modern story of scientific horror but also does so in a time when science fiction, as we know it did not exist.
The story of Griffin’s rise and fall is engaging and readable, providing almost wacky chaos through Griffin’s insanity and the panic of those around him. Every chapter is unpredictable, switching perspectives to bystanders and introducing new plotlines in increasingly unexpected ways that make the novel feel increasingly new. Nothing about the text reads as dated or exclusive to the 19th century—it is written so smartly that it could have been created today.
Wells’ take on invisibility, while one of the original and most prominent examples, feels incredibly unique, bringing up questions and quandaries that very few ever consider about invisibility.
How can he keep himself warm at the peak of winter? Obviously, his undigested food will be visible to onlookers; it isn’t part of him. Clearly, a smart way to catch an invisible man is to litter the streets with glass and he’ll be forced to walk on the shards and bleed, betraying his position. Certainly, locking every building in town to prevent him from stealing food will help him, but how will he eat?
These are all points that seem so obvious upon Wells’ discussions of them and represent just a few of his genius considerations yet are likely things that none of us have ever considered about invisibility.
This novel gave birth to the concept of modern invisibility as we know it, going beyond the written word to inspire a horror franchise. I wholeheartedly recommend “The Invisible Man” (1931), which depicts Griffin’s lunacy hilariously and earns a place within Universal Monsters Hall of Fame.
It is this novel that proves Wells’ success in “The Time Machine” (1895) was no fluke, and it is the success of “The Invisible Man” that propels Wells toward “War of the Worlds” (1898) and solidifies him as the reigning father of science fiction.
