The Invisible Man
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50 free The Invisible Man trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
H. G. Wells published The Invisible Man in 1897, and the idea has never gone out of fashion: a brilliant, short-tempered scientist finds a way to vanish and learns that being unseen is far less convenient than he imagined. The book starts as a comedy about a rude lodger in a nosy English village and ends as something much darker. This quiz follows the whole story: the stranger's arrival, the science behind his experiment, the people who help and hunt him, and the famous ending. It also covers how Wells came to write the book and the films, comics and music it inspired, from 1930s Hollywood to the present century. It suits readers who have just finished the novel, students revising it for class, including those using the Great Illustrated Classics edition, and anyone who knows the story from the screen. The questions run from easy openers to details only close readers will remember, and every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the surname of the title character in H. G. Wells's novel The Invisible Man, a former medical student?
Griffin
Griffin is the only name he ever gets: the novel never reveals his first name, though the 1933 film christened him Jack.
Q 02Why is the Invisible Man in H. G. Wells's novel so often freezing cold while moving about unseen?
He has to go naked
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.
Q 03What covers the whole head of the stranger who checks into a village inn at the start of The Invisible Man?
Bandages
Bandages wrap his forehead and ears, and the landlady decides she must be looking at the victim of a terrible accident or operation.
Q 04Which animal does the Invisible Man make vanish before he tries the process on himself?
A white cat
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.
Q 05How does the Invisible Man of H. G. Wells's novel finally meet his death in a seaside town?
Beaten by a crowd
Beaten by a crowd of townspeople as he tries to strangle the doctor who turned him in, he dies crying out for mercy.
Q 06Which H. G. Wells novel about an attack on England appeared in book form the year after The Invisible Man?
The War of the Worlds
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.
Q 07Which actor took the title role in the 1933 film The Invisible Man after Boris Karloff left the project?
Claude Rains
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.
Q 08Which actress plays Cecilia, stalked by an unseen ex-boyfriend, in the 2020 film The Invisible Man?
Elisabeth Moss
Elisabeth Moss leads a retelling that turns the novel's Victorian scientist into a wealthy optics engineer and makes his victim the main character.
Q 09The Invisible Man names his planned killing spree after which phase of the French Revolution?
The Reign of Terror
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.
Q 10Which British rock band released the 1989 single The Invisible Man from its album The Miracle?
Queen
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.
Q 11In which Sussex village does the muffled stranger take a room at the start of The Invisible Man?
Iping
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.
Q 12What is the name of the village inn where the mysterious stranger lodges in H. G. Wells's The Invisible Man?
The Coach and Horses
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.
Q 13Which landlady grows suspicious of her muffled lodger and his unpaid bill in The Invisible Man?
Mrs. Hall
Q 21In what weather does the muffled stranger walk from the railway station to the inn in The Invisible Man?
A snowstorm
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.
Q 22What is the Invisible Man secretly trying to make with his bottles of chemicals at the inn?
An antidote
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.
Q 23Whom does the Invisible Man rob to pay for his research, with fatal results?
His father
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.
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.
Q 14Which tramp does the Invisible Man bully into carrying his books and money?
Thomas Marvel
Thomas Marvel first appears at a roadside, lazily weighing up a pair of charity boots, and he ends the novel a prosperous man.
Q 15In whose house does the wounded Invisible Man take shelter, finding an old fellow student?
Dr. Kemp
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.
Q 16Which inherited condition does the Invisible Man mention when identifying himself to an old classmate?
Albinism
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.
Q 17The Invisible Man vanishes by lowering his body's refractive index to match that of what?
Air
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.
Q 18Why does the Invisible Man avoid eating shortly before he needs to go unseen?
Food shows until digested
Food shows until digested, hanging in plain sight inside his unseen body, so he has to go hungry before any outing.
Q 19What happens to the body of the Invisible Man in the moments after he dies?
It slowly becomes visible
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.
Q 20What does the tramp who served the Invisible Man become by the end of the novel?
An innkeeper
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.
Q 24Near which London street does the Invisible Man rob a theatrical costume shop for a disguise?
Drury Lane
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.
Q 25Where does the Invisible Man hide overnight in London, going to sleep in a heap of quilts?
A department store
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.
Q 26Whose home does the Invisible Man burgle by night when his own money runs low?
The vicar's
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.
Q 27On which spring holiday do the villagers finally discover the truth about their lodger in The Invisible Man?
Whit Monday
Whit Monday was the village's club festival, so the unmasking played out beside a row of fairground booths, swings and a coconut shy.
Q 28Which animals can detect the Invisible Man even when nothing of him can be seen?
Dogs
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.
Q 29Which fake body part does the Invisible Man wear so that his muffled face looks complete?
A false nose
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.
Q 30Which Greek philosopher's tale of a shepherd's ring of invisibility helped inspire The Invisible Man?
Plato
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.