50 Fun Facts About The Invisible Man

What is the surname of the title character in H. G. Wells's novel The Invisible Man, a former medical student?

Griffin is the only name he ever gets: the novel never reveals his first name, though the 1933 film christened him Jack.

Why is the Invisible Man in H. G. Wells's novel so often freezing cold while moving about unseen?

He has to go naked, since his clothes can still be seen, and his first unseen walk through London on a January day leaves him with a sneezing cold that nearly gives him away.

What covers the whole head of the stranger who checks into a village inn at the start of The Invisible Man?

Bandages wrap his forehead and ears, and the landlady decides she must be looking at the victim of a terrible accident or operation.

Which animal does the Invisible Man make vanish before he tries the process on himself?

A white cat is his first living test subject, and the backs of its eyes refuse to fade, leaving two little ghosts of eyes behind.

How does the Invisible Man of H. G. Wells's novel finally meet his death in a seaside town?

Beaten by a crowd of townspeople as he tries to strangle the doctor who turned him in, he dies crying out for mercy.

Which H. G. Wells novel about an attack on England appeared in book form the year after The Invisible Man?

The War of the Worlds reached bookshops in 1898 after a magazine run, and like its predecessor it brings panic to the quiet towns of southern England.

Which actor took the title role in the 1933 film The Invisible Man after Boris Karloff left the project?

Claude Rains was a little-known stage actor whom Universal did not want in the lead, and he had been thinking of giving up acting for his New Jersey farm.

Which actress plays Cecilia, stalked by an unseen ex-boyfriend, in the 2020 film The Invisible Man?

Elisabeth Moss leads a retelling that turns the novel's Victorian scientist into a wealthy optics engineer and makes his victim the main character.

The Invisible Man names his planned killing spree after which phase of the French Revolution?

The Reign of Terror is his name for a scheme to rule a town through murder, and in a letter he grandly proclaims himself Invisible Man the First.

Which British rock band released the 1989 single The Invisible Man from its album The Miracle?

Queen drummer Roger Taylor wrote it after an idea struck him while reading a book, and the lyrics name all four band members in turn.

In which Sussex village does the muffled stranger take a room at the start of The Invisible Man?

Iping is a real village on the River Rother, two miles from Midhurst, the Sussex town where the young Wells was apprenticed to a chemist and later went to school.

What is the name of the village inn where the mysterious stranger lodges in H. G. Wells's The Invisible Man?

The Coach and Horses gave the story its first title as well: Wells's shorter early draft was named after a man staying at the inn.

Which landlady grows suspicious of her muffled lodger and his unpaid bill in The Invisible Man?

Mrs. Hall puts up with his rages and smashed bottles for as long as he pays extra, and turns on him only when his money runs out in late April.

Which tramp does the Invisible Man bully into carrying his books and money?

Thomas Marvel first appears at a roadside, lazily weighing up a pair of charity boots, and he ends the novel a prosperous man.

In whose house does the wounded Invisible Man take shelter, finding an old fellow student?

Dr. Kemp remembers his visitor as a prize-winning student from University College, hears him out, and by morning has sent word to the police.

Which inherited condition does the Invisible Man mention when identifying himself to an old classmate?

Albinism is how he jogs his classmate's memory, describing himself as the six-foot student with a pink face and red eyes who won the chemistry medal.

The Invisible Man vanishes by lowering his body's refractive index to match that of what?

Air was the target because an object vanishes when it bends light exactly as its surroundings do, the way a sheet of glass almost disappears under water.

Why does the Invisible Man avoid eating shortly before he needs to go unseen?

Food shows until digested, hanging in plain sight inside his unseen body, so he has to go hungry before any outing.

What happens to the body of the Invisible Man in the moments after he dies?

It slowly becomes visible, beginning with a hazy sketch of nerves and veins in one hand, until the onlookers are staring at a young man of about thirty.

What does the tramp who served the Invisible Man become by the end of the novel?

An innkeeper with money nobody could prove was stolen, he names his pub after his old master and secretly pores over three notebooks he cannot read.

In what weather does the muffled stranger walk from the railway station to the inn in The Invisible Man?

A snowstorm, the last of the winter, blows him into the village in early February, wrapped up from head to foot and carrying one small black bag.

What is the Invisible Man secretly trying to make with his bottles of chemicals at the inn?

An antidote was the whole point of his months at the inn: he wanted a way back to normal that he could use once he had done all he meant to do unseen.

Whom does the Invisible Man rob to pay for his research, with fatal results?

His father had been holding the money for someone else and shot himself when it vanished, yet the son admits he felt no sorrow at the funeral.

Near which London street does the Invisible Man rob a theatrical costume shop for a disguise?

Drury Lane is where he knocks down a costumier, ties him up in a sheet and walks out wearing a mask, dark glasses, a wig and stage whiskers.

Where does the Invisible Man hide overnight in London, going to sleep in a heap of quilts?

A department store called Omniums feeds and clothes him for a night, until the staff find him next morning and hunt him through the shop, forcing him to strip again to escape.

Whose home does the Invisible Man burgle by night when his own money runs low?

The vicar's housekeeping gold vanishes from his study, and when he bursts in with a poker nobody is there, though a sneeze then sounds in the passage.

On which spring holiday do the villagers finally discover the truth about their lodger in The Invisible Man?

Whit Monday was the village's club festival, so the unmasking played out beside a row of fairground booths, swings and a coconut shy.

Which animals can detect the Invisible Man even when nothing of him can be seen?

Dogs pick up the scent of a moving man as easily as people see one, he explains, and one bit his leg outside the inn, tearing his trousers to show only blackness beneath.

Which fake body part does the Invisible Man wear so that his muffled face looks complete?

A false nose, pink and shining, is what he hands the landlady when he unmasks, and she drops it with a scream as the middle of his face becomes a black cavity.

Which Greek philosopher's tale of a shepherd's ring of invisibility helped inspire The Invisible Man?

Plato tells it in the Republic, where a speaker argues that nobody could resist doing wrong if he could never be caught, and Wells read the book as a teenager.

Which British magazine serialised H. G. Wells's The Invisible Man shortly before its publication as a book?

Pearson's Weekly had been founded in 1890 by Arthur Pearson, a former Tit-Bits man, and his firm went on to publish the novel in book form too.

What subtitle did H. G. Wells give The Invisible Man on the title page of the novel?

A Grotesque Romance fits a book that opens as village comedy and ends in murder, and Wells called his early science fiction novels scientific romances.

Which Victorian humorist's comic ballad about a man whose clothes stay in view inspired The Invisible Man?

W. S. Gilbert, better known for his comic operas with Arthur Sullivan, wrote The Perils of Invisibility as one of his Bab Ballads.

Which police officer is shot with a revolver outside the doctor's house near the end of The Invisible Man?

Colonel Adye had borrowed the doctor's revolver for the walk into town, only to have it wrested from his grip by an unseen hand and turned on him.

Which mild-mannered steward does the Invisible Man kill with an iron rod in H. G. Wells's novel?

Mr. Wicksteed was walking quietly home to his midday meal, and may simply have noticed a rod moving along by itself and followed it.

In which fictional town does the Invisible Man launch his campaign of murder and die?

Port Burdock is where the terrified tramp ends up locked, at his own request, in the strongest cell of the police station.

What is the first object the Invisible Man makes vanish, before testing any living creature?

A piece of wool fabric faded like a wreath of smoke, he recalls, yet when he reached for the spot it was still there, as solid as ever.

Which poison does the Invisible Man swallow as a tonic to steady himself?

Strychnine, he boasts, takes the flabbiness out of a man, and his listener calls it the palaeolithic in a bottle.

What is the trade of Teddy Henfrey, the villager who dawdles in the stranger's parlour in The Invisible Man?

Clock mender Teddy Henfrey takes the works out quite needlessly to spin out the job and start a chat, and the stranger angrily accuses him of humbugging.

When her furniture seems to attack her in The Invisible Man, what does the landlady decide has got into it?

Spirits were to blame, she insisted after a chair drove her from the room, and she was furious that they had been put into a seat her own mother used to sit in.

What does the village doctor in The Invisible Man see that sends him fleeing from the stranger's room?

An empty sleeve rises towards the doctor's face, and something like a finger and thumb gives him a nip, though he can see straight down the cuff to the elbow.

Which director made Universal's 1933 film of The Invisible Man after twice walking away from the project?

James Whale first quit for fear of being tagged a horror director, and his finished film was chosen for the US National Film Registry in 2008.

Who wrote and directed the 2020 film The Invisible Man after Universal dropped its shared monster universe?

Leigh Whannell made it for about $7 million and saw it take about $145 million worldwide, and he insisted it was never meant to be part of that universe.

In the 1933 film The Invisible Man, which fictional drug makes the scientist unseen and drives him mad?

Monocane was invented for the screenplay, and H. G. Wells approved the idea that the drug itself, not just the power it brings, sends the scientist insane.

Which star was cast as The Invisible Man in 2016 for Universal's Dark Universe, in a film never made?

Johnny Depp never got to play the part, because The Mummy flopped in 2017 and the studio abandoned its plan for an interlinked series of monster films.

Which comics writer made the Invisible Man a villainous member of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen?

Alan Moore gave him the first name Hawley and put him in a Victorian team recruited by Mina Murray, alongside Captain Nemo and Allan Quatermain.

Which American author wrote Invisible Man, the unrelated 1952 novel narrated by a nameless Black man?

Ralph Ellison won the 1953 National Book Award for Fiction with it, the first African-American writer to do so.

In the 2020 film The Invisible Man, what does the villain use to make himself unseen?

A high-tech suit replaces the novel's chemicals, and the heroine fights back by stabbing her stalker with a pen until the outfit malfunctions.

Which comedy duo starred in a 1951 Universal film in which a boxer takes the Invisible Man's formula?

Abbott and Costello play two private detectives, and their unseen client has been framed for murder and wants to find the real killer himself.

Which actor plays the murderous unseen scientist in Hollow Man, a 2000 film on the invisible man theme?

Kevin Bacon was digitally removed from the footage, with each scene shot twice, and the visual effects earned an Oscar nomination.