Book review: The Invisible Man, HG Wells (1895)

I bought this book at a second-hand bookstore in Nowra in November.

It’s clear that Wells understood that science and the media are twins of the same beast – material progress – that has animated our world in such a wide variety of ways since the Renaissance. Building on innovations introduced by Edgar Alan Poe a couple of generations earlier, he offers his readers a dramatic story where the law struggles to grapple with advances made in learning. My copy is illustrated – the drawings are not very good – and so is clearly aimed at children. 

Children, indeed, must be the premier audience for this rip-roarer, which contains a good deal of physical violence. The motivations that compel the characters to act are not very sophisticated, particularly with regard to the Invisible Man, who is a bit too much of the psychopath for 21st century tastes. 

More than a detective story this is an action novel but it’s interesting from an historical perspective to see how people lived a century ago. What were they like? How did they think? It’s hard to make judgements based on this slim volume which is, in any case, a bit high-toned. I also wasn’t entirely happy with the rubric “thriller” that is printed on the cover; this is more of an antiquarian novelty than a novel of suspense. Good for youngsters and for those, like me, who want to get a sample of the authentic. A lot of early sci-fi is not as good as this.