The Invisible Man (novel)

The Invisible Man is a novel by H. G. Wells, Trope Codifier for many Invisibility tropes.

The Invisible Man tells the story of an encounter the people of a sleepy town have with a mysterious newcomer who conceals himself entirely with bandages. The townspeople grow ever curious at the secretive, dangerously short-tempered man and his experiments. Frustrated by the inquisitive nature of the locals, the man goes into a rage, tears away his bandages, and reveals to the people that he is in fact completely invisible.

From this point on, the story follows the invisible man's trail of destruction and terror across the land as he attempts to either find a cure for his condition or take over the country (whichever is more likely).

It was made into a famous film version by Universal in 1933.

Not to be confused with Invisible Man (without the definitive article), the 1952 novel by Ralph Ellison.


 * Ax Crazy
 * Bandaged Face: Trope Codifier, if not Maker
 * Chemistry Can Do Anything
 * Dancing Pants: May be the Ur Example.
 * Evil Albino
 * Funetik Aksent: Many of the characters' accents are written phonetically. One example being that Mrs. Hall calls her husband "Gearge" (George).
 * Hair-Trigger Temper: Griffin.
 * Harbinger of Impending Doom
 * Home Counties: The story happens in West Sussex and its surroundings. Wells surely has a great time describing the peaceful simple life on a south town, considering he lived there part of his life.
 * Invisible Jerkass
 * Invisible Streaker
 * Invisibility
 * Laughing Mad
 * Mad Scientist
 * Misapplied Phlebotinum: Though Griffin does state that he can turn cloth invisible, he never makes himself invisible clothes.
 * Naked People Trapped Outside
 * New Era Speech: It's a warning letter, not a speech, but the spirit is the same.
 * One Bullet Left
 * Police Are Useless: Averted. Jaffers the village constable in Iping is rather quick on the uptake, and Port Burdock's Colonel Adye is a pretty brave (if reckless) policeman as well. His two subordinate constables are also pretty badass, fending Griffin (who has a gun and an axe) off with fireplace pokers.
 * Professor Guinea Pig
 * Red Eyes, Take Warning
 * Reign of Terror: Griffin says that's what he'll try to achieve in England (and the world, eventually) with those exact words.
 * Screw the Rules, I Have Supernatural Powers
 * Sunglasses at Night: Justified, since he's trying to hide the fact that his eyes are invisible.
 * Take Over the World
 * That Man Is Dead
 * This Was His True Form
 * With Great Power Comes Great Insanity : Quasi-subverted. Griffin does act insane, but his backstory reveals that he's always been a pretty terrible person (he stole from his father, causing his suicide and didn't even feel bad about it). The invisibility gave free rein to his nature, but didn't create it.